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Jane Austen and
William Shakespeare
A Love Affair in Literature,
Film and Performance
Edited by
Marina Cano
Rosa García-Periago
Jane Austen and William Shakespeare
 Marina Cano • Rosa García-Periago
Editors

Jane Austen and

William Shakespeare
A Love Affair in Literature, Film and Performance
Editors
Marina Cano Rosa García-Periago
University of Limerick University of Murcia
Limerick, Ireland Murcia, Spain
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-25688-3    ISBN 978-3-030-25689-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25689-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Janine Barchas

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Nora and Victoria
 Acknowledgments

‘I can no other answer make but thanks, / And thanks, and ever thanks,’
wrote Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. Our thanks, and ever thanks, go first of
all to the following people for their generous advice and/or feedback on the
book proposal: Mark Thornton Burnett, Clara Calvo, David Coughlan,
Michael Griffin, Douglas Lanier, Nicholas Roe and Kate Rumbold. We are
also grateful to the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen’s
University, Belfast, for their generous funding. For granting us permission
to reproduce their images, we would like to thank Janine Barchas, Lynda
Hall and Geoff Tristam, as well as the Folger Shakespeare Library
(Washington, D.C.) and Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton.
More individually, we whole-heartedly acknowledge the support of the
following:
Marina: For their generous assistance with my chapter ‘Austen and
Shakespeare: Improvised Drama’ (Chap. 11), I would like to thank the
improv companies that agreed to be interviewed and devoted a substantial
amount of their time to this end during the busy Edinburgh Fringe Festival
2017. These are Lee Minora (from Cheeks), Alan Marriott (Will
Shakespeare’s ImproMusical), and very especially, Ailis Duff and Rebecca
Macmillan (Impromptu Shakespeare). For allowing me to print their pho-
tographs, I am grateful to Bob Stafford, Damian Robertson and
Austentatious. I would also like to thank Sam Haddow for his improv-­
related recommendations and Fiona Payne, from the Edinburgh Festival
Fringe Society Ltd., for giving me access to past programs.
Rosa: I would like to thank my colleagues from the University of Murcia
(especially those part of the research project ‘Shakespeare and the 20th

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Century: War, Cultural Memory and New Media’ (FFI2015-68871-P),

led by Clara Calvo). In fact, the research for my chapter was done under
the auspices of this project. I thank Clara Calvo sincerely for her mentor-
ship, encouragement, feedback and support. I would also like to thank my
current supervisor (Mark Thornton Burnett) for his wise and generous
comments. I am also extremely grateful for the feedback generously
offered by my colleague and friend Thea Buckley. My parents and my
brother have also been extremely supportive. My husband has made my
contribution to this book possible in more ways than I can acknowledge.
For his wise and insightful comments, for many hours of childcare, for
belief and encouragement at every stage, thank you. And finally, to my
beloved daughter Nora: her love and energy were what I needed during
the last stages of the book.
Finally, we are grateful to all the contributors to this volume for their
patience and arduous work. We dedicate this volume to our daughter and
sister, respectively: to Nora, who was born during the preparation of this
volume, and to Victoria, who had been born many years previously but
did not yet have a book.
 Contents

1 Introduction: Jane and Will, the Love Story  1

Marina Cano and Rosa García-Periago

Part I History, Contexts and Criticism  27

2 Jane Austen as ‘Prose Shakespeare’: Early Comparisons 29

Joanne Wilkes

3 William Shakespeare and Jane Austen: Biographical

Challenges 51
Robert Bearman

4 Austen and Shakespeare Translated 73

Marie Nedregotten Sørbø

5 Jewels, Bonds and the Body: Material Culture in

Shakespeare and Austen 97
Barbara M. Benedict

ix
x Contents

Part II Intertextual Connections 127

6 Is it ‘a marriage of true minds’? Balanced Reading in

Northanger Abbey and Persuasion129
Lynda A. Hall

7 ‘As sure as I have a thought or a soul’: The Protestant

Heroine in Shakespeare and Austen151
Claire McEachern

8 Tyrants, Lovers and Comedy in the Green Worlds of

Mansfield Park and A Midsummer Night’s Dream173
Inger S. B. Brodey

9 Forbidden Familial Relations: Echoes of Shakespeare’s

King Henry VIII and Hamlet in Austen’s Mansfield Park
and Sense and Sensibility193
Glenda A. Hudson

Part III Theatre, Film and Performance 215

10 Shylock’s Turquoise Ring: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

and the ‘Exquisite Acting’ of Edmund Kean217
Judith W. Page

11 Austen and Shakespeare: Improvised Drama239

Marina Cano

12 Shakespeare, Austen and Propaganda in World War II269

Rosa García-Periago

13 Screening Will and Jane: Sexuality and the Gendered

Author in Shakespeare and Austen Biopics291
Lisa S. Starks
 Contents  xi

Part IV Popular Culture 311

14 Austen and Shakespeare, Detectives313

Lisa Hopkins

15 The Twilight Saga as an Adaptation of Shakespeare and

Austen335
Heta Pyrhönen

16 Curating Will & Jane357

Janine Barchas and Kristina Straub

17 Afterword399
Mark Thornton Burnett

Index403
 Notes on Contributors

Janine Barchas is the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor in

English Literature at the University of Texas, Austin. Together with
Kristina Straub, she curated the popular ‘Will & Jane’ exhibition at the
Folger Shakespeare Library in 2016. She is the creator behind What Jane
Saw (www.whatjanesaw.org) and the author of two books on Austen,
including most recently The Lost Books of Jane Austen (2019).
Robert Bearman is former Head of Archives and Local Studies at the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon and Honorary
Research Fellow, University of Birmingham. Bearman is the author of
Shakespeare in the Stratford Records (1994) and Shakespeare’s Money
(2016). He is also a lead contributor to Shakespeare Documented (the
online exhibition convened by the Folger Shakespeare Library) and has
published articles in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Survey and
Midland History on issues affecting Shakespearean biography.
Barbara M. Benedict is the Charles A. Dana Professor of English at
Trinity College, Connecticut. She is the author of Framing Feeling:
Sentiment and Style in English Prose Fiction, 1745–1800; Making the
Modern Reader: Cultural Mediation in Early-Modern Literary Anthologies;
and Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early-Modern Inquiry. She has also
edited Eighteenth-Century English Erotica, 1700–1800, vol. 4, Wilkes and
the Late Eighteenth-Century and (with Deidre LeFaye) Jane Austen’s
Northanger Abbey for Cambridge University Press. She is currently writing
books on collecting and on Jane Austen.

xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors

Inger S. B. Brodey is Associate Professor in English and Comparative

Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-­
founder and director of the award-winning Jane Austen Summer Program.
Her books, book essays and articles are centered in literature, political
philosophy and intellectual history. She is a frequent speaker at Jane
Austen events around the world and serves as board member of the North
American Friends of Chawton House as well as UNC Press.
Mark Thornton Burnett is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen’s
University, Belfast. He is the author of Masters and Servants in English
Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority and Obedience (Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1997), Constructing ‘Monsters’ in Shakespearean Drama and
Early Modern Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), Filming Shakespeare
in the Global Marketplace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007; 2nd ed. 2012),
Shakespeare and World Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2013) and ‘Hamlet’ and World Cinema (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019).
Marina Cano is a teaching fellow in English at the University of Limerick,
Ireland. She is the author of Jane Austen and Performance (Palgrave,
2017), the first exploration of the performative and theatrical force of
Austen’s work and its afterlife, from the nineteenth century to the
present. Her research interests include women’s writing, the long
nineteenth-century, performance and gender theory. During 2013–2016,
she was a researcher in ‘Travelling Texts 1790–1914: Transnational
Reception of Women’s Writing at the Fringes of Europe’ (HERA,
EU-funded project).
Rosa García-Periago is a Lecturer at the University of Murcia (Spain).
She is currently on leave as Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast
with a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship awarded by the EU. Her research
interests include Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Bollywood and adaptation
in Indian cinema.
Lynda A. Hall is Associate Professor of English at Chapman University
in Orange, California. She earned her PhD at Claremont Graduate
University. Her monograph Women and ‘Value’ in Jane Austen’s Novels:
Settling, Speculating and Superfluity was published by Palgrave Macmillan
in 2017. She has essays forthcoming in the MLA Approaches to teaching
Persuasion, and in Texas Studies in Language and Learning’s special edi-
tion entitled ‘What’s Next for Jane Austen’.
 Notes on Contributors  xv

Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University and

co-edits Shakespeare and Arden Early Modern Drama Guides. Her publi-
cations include Shakespearean Allusion in Crime Fiction: DCI Shakespeare
(Palgrave, 2016), Relocating Shakespeare and Austen on Screen (Palgrave,
2009) and the edited collection After Austen: Reinventions, Rewritings,
Revisitings (Palgrave, 2018).
Glenda A. Hudson is Professor of English at California State University,
Bakersfield. The author of Sibling Love and Incest in Jane Austen’s Fiction
(Macmillan, U.K./St. Martin’s, U.S.A., 1992; paperback 1999) and co-­
author of A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms (Houghton Mifflin/
Cengage, third edition 2011), she has also published numerous articles
and reviews on Victorian literature, the British novel and children’s
literature.
Claire McEachern is Professor of English at the University of California,
Los Angeles. Her most recent monograph is Believing in Shakespeare:
Studies in Longing (Cambridge University Press, 2018). She has also
edited several of Shakespeare’s plays, including the Arden 3 edition of
Much Ado About Nothing (Bloomsbury, 2015).
Judith W. Page is Professor of English and Distinguished Teaching
Scholar, Emerita, at the University of Florida, where she also served as
Director of the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research. She is
completing a book on women, literature and gardens in early twentieth-­
century England.
Heta Pyrhönen is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University
of Helsinki. She has studied the legacy of the ‘Bluebeard’ tale in women’s
writing (Bluebeard Gothic, 2010) and the legacy of Jane Austen’s novels
(Jane Austen aikalaisemme, 2014). She has also worked on the intersec-
tions between narrative and morality in the detective story (Murder from
an Academic Angle, 1994, and Mayhem and Murder, 1999).
Marie Nedregotten Sørbø is Professor of English literature at Volda
University College, Norway, and author of Jane Austen Speaks Norwegian:
The Challenges of Literary Translation (2018) and Irony and Idyll: Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park on Screen (2014). She has
contributed chapters on Austen and George Eliot to The Reception of
British and Irish Authors in Europe.
xvi Notes on Contributors

Lisa S. Starks is Professor of English at the University of South Florida

St. Petersburg. She has published on Shakespeare and related topics,
including Violence, Trauma, and Virtus in Shakespeare’s Roman Poems and
Plays: Transforming Ovid (Palgrave, 2014). Currently, she is editing Ovid
and Adaptation in Early Modern English Theater (EUP).
Kristina Straub is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie
Mellon University where she teaches eighteenth-century British studies,
performance studies, gender studies and sexuality studies. She is most
recently the author of Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence
Between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth Century Britain (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2009). She co-curated ‘Will & Jane:
Shakespeare, Austen, and Literary Celebrity’ at the Folger Shakespeare
Library with Janine Barchas and has co-edited two new anthologies of
eighteenth-century drama (with Misty Anderson and Daniel O’Quinn)
for Routledge Press. Her current scholarly project, a book tentatively
titled ‘Academia on the Market: Theatre, Gender, and Public Knowledge,
1660–1760’.
Joanne Wilkes is Professor of English at the University of Auckland in
New Zealand. The author of Women Reviewing Women in Nineteenth-­
Century Britain: The Critical Reception of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë
and George Eliot (2010), Wilkes has worked extensively on nineteenth-­
century literary criticism and on Jane Austen.
 Abbreviations

E Emma
MP Mansfield Park
MW Minor Works
NA Northanger Abbey
P Persuasion
PP Pride and Prejudice
SS Sense and Sensibility

xvii
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Will and Jane visit Chawton House in 2015 (Photo by Janine
Barchas)2
Fig. 1.2 Decorations at the JASNA Annual General Meeting 2017.
The Hyatt Regency, Huntington Beach Resort and Spa,
California (Photo by Lynda Hall) 5
Fig. 1.3 Shakespeare’s silhouette at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre,
Stratford, as part of the anniversary celebrations, 23 April
20166
Fig. 1.4 The 400th anniversary portrait of William Shakespeare by
Geoff Tristam (2016), in association with Stratford-Upon-
Avon’s Town and District Councils. Courtesy of the artist 13
Fig. 1.5 Jane Austen statue in Basingstoke and its creator Adam
Roud, Summer 2017 14
Fig. 5.1 Gold and enamel ring set with turquoise made for a child, c.
1550. Such rings were talismans for protection and health
(Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum) 104
Fig. 5.2 Gold posy ring, typically a betrothal or wedding gift, c.
1500–1530 (Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum) 107
Fig. 5.3 This early nineteenth-century gold ring displays the
deceased’s hair encased in a central, heart-shaped crystal
surrounded by a black enamel border to indicate mourning
(Private collection of the author) 111
Fig. 5.4 Hair pendant set with pearls, c. 1802. Rings, pendants and
brooches containing the plaited hair of a loved one were
common, sentimental mementos, often of a deceased relative
(Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum) 112

xix
xx LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5.5 Heart-shaped crystal pendant surrounded by rubies,

containing a curl of hair, c. 1800: a Regency love-token
(Private collection of the author) 113
Fig. 5.6 Ivory and gilt toothpick case, probably British, c. 1780–1800,
with a mirror, velvet lining and a gold-rimmed lid. Although
such toothpick cases were small enough to fit into a pocket or
reticule, their expensive materials and careful artistry suggest
they also served as display items (Courtesy of the Victoria and
Albert Museum) 114
Fig. 5.7 Luxurious Venetian casket, with veneer set with mother-of-
pearl plaques, bronze handles, with later red velvet lining c.
1575–1600. Such caskets came in a variety of sizes and, like
Jessica’s, Innogen’s and Mary Crawford’s, could contain
jewels and personal or cosmetic items (Courtesy of the
Victoria and Albert Museum) 115
Fig. 11.1 Impromptu Shakespeare, opening collaborative game of ping
pong balls (Photo by Robert Stafford, 2017) 241
Fig. 11.2 Austentatious, an Improvised Jane Austen Novel. Cariad
Lloyd and Rachel Parris (Photo by Damian Robertson, 2012) 249
Fig. 11.3 Austentatious, an Improvised Jane Austen Novel. Cariad
Lloyd and Andrew Hunter Murray (Photo by Damian
Robertson, 2017) 252
Fig. 11.4 Impromptu Shakespeare. James Irving and Tom Wilkinson
(Photo by Robert Stafford, 2017) 254
Fig. 11.5 Impromptu Shakespeare. James Irving and Tom Wilkinson
(Photo by Robert Stafford, 2017) 255
Fig. 16.1 Final exhibition logo used by Folger Shakespeare Library in
Fall 2016 358
Fig. 16.2 Oil painting of David Garrick Leaning on a Bust of
Shakespeare, after Thomas Gainsborough, post-1769,
114.3 cm × 75.9 cm. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #:
FPb27 (Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare
Library)360
Fig. 16.3 The Staunton Portrait of Shakespeare, 1770, oil on canvas,
76.3 × 63.5 cm. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #: FPs18
(Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library) 361
Fig. 16.4 The Lumley Portrait of Shakespeare, eighteenth century, oil on
canvas, 45 × 36 cm. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #:
FPs23 (Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare
Library)362
 LIST OF FIGURES xxi

Fig. 16.5 The Dexter Portrait of Shakespeare, nineteenth century, oil on

panel, 38.4 × 29.1 cm. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #:
FPs10 (Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare
Library)363
Fig. 16.6 Pencil sketch drawn from life by sister Cassandra, ca. 1810.
National Portrait Gallery, London 364
Fig. 16.7 Frontispiece to James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of
Jane Austen (London: Richard Bentley, 1870). National
Portrait Gallery, London 364
Fig. 16.8 Chalice of mulberry tree wood, turned and silver mounted,
circa 1800–1801, 5 and 7/8 inches tall, 3 and 7/8 inches
rim diameter, 3 and 3/8 inches base diameter. Inscription on
silver rim: ‘Made from a piece of Shakespeare’s mulberry tree
by Mr. Sharpe silversmith Stratford on Avon’. Folger
Shakespeare Library Call #: Wood 12a (Used by permission
of the Folger Shakespeare Library) 367
Fig. 16.9 The lock of Austen’s hair donated by Alberta Burke in 1949.
Jane Austen’s House Museum, Chawton 368
Fig. 16.10 Wood from Shakespeare’s Birthplace, tied with string, 1600s
to 1900s, approximately 70 × 20 cm. Folger Shakespeare
Library Call #: ART Inv. 1180 (Used by permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library) 368
Fig. 16.11 Three multi-colored Derby porcelains of a Richard III iconic
pose. From left to right: David Garrick as Richard III,
1775–1780, 11 ¼ in.; John Philip Kemble as Richard III, c.
1790, 10 ¾ in.; Edmund Kean as Richard III, 1815, 11 and
1/16 in.). Folger Shakespeare Library Calls #: ART 241076;
ART 241078; ART 241079 (Used by permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library) 370
Fig. 16.12 Montage of wet Darcys: 12-foot fiberglass Darcy, 2013,
Associated Press 371
Fig. 16.13 Moment from TV miniseries, Lost in Austen (2008) (With
permission from Mammoth Screen) 371
Fig. 16.14 Benedict Cumberbatch as Darcy (Photograph by Jason Bell
© 2015) 372
Fig. 16.15 George Romney, The Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature
and the Passions, ca. 1791–1792, oil on canvas, 143.5 ×
203 cm. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #: FPa49 (Used by
permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library) 374
Fig. 16.16 Circular papier-mâché box by Samuel Raven depicting
portrait of actor Edmund Kean, 1822, 3 and 7/8 in.
diameter. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #: ART 241306
(Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library) 376
xxii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 16.17 Mid- to late-nineteenth-century jewelry set carved from

Hearne’s oak by William Perry. Necklace, 22 and 7/8 in.;
bracelet, 7 ½ in.; pendant, 2 ¼ in.; brooch, 2 and 1/8 × 1 ¾
in.; earrings, 2 ½ in. Folger Shakespeare Library Call #:
Wood No. 5a–e (Used by permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library) 378
Fig. 16.18 William Shakespeare and Jane Austen action figures
manufactured by Accoutrements, 2005 and 2003,
respectively. Objects in photo may appear larger than actual
size of 5 ½ in. Removable quill pens, writing desk (for Jane)
and book (for Will) not shown 379
Fig. 16.19 An Album of Celebrities of British History (London: Carreras
Limited, n.d. [ca. 1935]), landscape orientation, 5 × 9 in.
Private collection 380
Fig. 16.20 Shakespeare Boiled Down (Chicago: New Home Sewing
Machine Co., n.d.[ca. 1890]) 381
Fig. 16.21 James Joyce’s copy of As You Like It (Leipzig: Tauchnitz,
1868). Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin 383
Fig. 16.22 Evelyn Waugh’s copy of Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by
Hugh Thomson (London: G. Allen, 1894). Harry Ransom
Center, University of Texas, Austin 384
Fig. 16.23 John Poole (1786?–1872). Hamlet Travestie: in Three Acts
(London, 1811), leaf A2 recto (page 3): 2nd title page.
Folger Shakespeare Library Call #: PR2807.A72 P6 1811
item 1 Sh.Col. (Used by permission of the Folger
Shakespeare Library) 386
Fig. 16.24 Jane Austen’s turquoise ring formerly owned by singer Kelly
Clarkson. Jane Austen’s House Museum, Chawton 387
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Jane and Will, the Love Story

Marina Cano and Rosa García-Periago

In July 2015, Jane and Will were seen hand in hand roaming the English
countryside. The couple pointed to the sheep that were peacefully grazing
under the Hampshire sun, and then continued their walk on the soft green
slopes towards Jane’s cottage.1 Rumour has it that, earlier that year, Jane
and Will had been together in Stratford (Will’s hometown), and also in
London and Oxford, where they had been spotted near the Bodleian
Library and the Hertford Bridge. Were they secretly dating? Had they
bonded over their love of writing? The rumours were confirmed one year
later: in autumn 2016, Will and Jane were again seen together, this time
on a pink bus around Washington DC. Everything points to a long-term
relationship between Jane Austen and William Shakespeare.
In actuality, Will and Jane were plastic action figures that the organizers
of the Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition Will & Jane: Shakespeare,
Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity paraded around Southern England to
publicize their upcoming event (Fig. 1.1). In 2015, curators Janine
Barchas and Kristina Straub were in the UK gathering materials for their

M. Cano (*)
University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
R. García-Periago
University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

© The Author(s) 2019 1

M. Cano, R. García-Periago (eds.), Jane Austen and William
Shakespeare, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25689-0_1
2 M. CANO AND R. GARCÍA-PERIAGO

Fig. 1.1 Will and Jane visit Chawton House in 2015 (Photo by Janine Barchas)

exhibition; they also gave a preview talk of the show in Chawton,

Hampshire, which one of us was lucky enough to attend. The exhibition
opened one year later, officially bringing Austen and Shakespeare together
in the museum gallery. It aimed to reflect on the nature of literary celeb-
rity by showcasing a variety of Austen- and Shakespeare-related commodi-
ties, from portraits of the authors to editions of their works, to kitsch
objects, such as Austen toothpaste and Shakespeare band-aids. Barchas
and Straub’s account of the Folger exhibition, and the process of curating
it, is reprinted as Chap. 16 of this volume.
By the autumn of 2016, when the exhibition was in full swing, our
book was already in preparation. It soon became apparent that there were
notable parallels between the projects. The Will & Jane exhibition touched
upon ideas that our contributors were excavating more deeply in their
chapters: common topics include material culture, biographical controver-
sies, theatre, film and fanfiction, among others. To briefly expand on some
of these connections, the exhibition’s interest in commodity culture is
 1 INTRODUCTION: JANE AND WILL, THE LOVE STORY 3

complemented by Barbara Benedict’s study on jewellery in Shakespeare’s

plays and Austen’s novels (Chap. 5). The factual uncertainties that the
Folger exhibition explored through a variety of portraits and biographies
are here examined by Robert Bearman (Chap. 3). Austen’s relish for the
theatre is another thread connecting the Folger exhibition and the current
volume: Will & Jane displayed a playbill of The Merchant of Venice from 5
March 1814, the night Austen attended the performance in London. In
the present volume, Judith Page (Chap. 10) considers this theatrical expe-
rience, speculating on Austen’s reaction to Shylock (as performed by
Edmund Kean) and how such reaction might have been influenced by her
recent completion of Mansfield Park. Finally, the thriving afterlives of
Austen and Shakespeare, brilliantly documented at the Folger through a
display of films, sequels and mash-ups (e.g. Ten Things I Hate About You,
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) are further explored here by Lisa Starks
(biopics, Chap. 13), Lisa Hopkins (crime fiction, Chap. 14) and Heta
Pyrhönen (The Twilight Saga, Chap. 15).
The Will & Jane exhibition thus serves as a robust cornerstone for the
present collection. Our book’s principal aim is to uncover, trace and
explore—as fully as possible in the space of one volume—the connections
between Jane Austen and William Shakespeare (the two most canonical
British writers) and their literary fates. Hence, the book is concerned with
the ways in which fragmentation and deformation of the authors’ works
have contributed to their success and how, culturally, the two authors have
come to ‘collaborate’ with each other. By investigating numerous aspects
of the connection (intertextual links, critical reception, translation, perfor-
mance, and so on), the chapters in this book will complement previous
works and events. They will cast fresh light on the parallels, and also the
divergences, between these two lynchpins of English literature, and espe-
cially on their cultural currency in the twenty-first century.
This currency is manifest in the numerous Shakespeare and Austen
events that occurred around the globe in 2016 and 2017. These years
marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the 200th anni-
versary of Austen’s, respectively. This unique convergence was noted
through events such as the Will & Jane exhibition, itself part of the wider
Shakespeare celebrations organized by the Folger (The Wonder of Will: 400
Years of Shakespeare). The Wonder of Will festival included talks, perfor-
mances and screenings to commemorate Shakespeare’s legacy. Another
such event was #MySHX400: ‘My Shakespeare 400: Share your
Shakespeare Story’. Through #MySHX400, the Folger invited people to
4 M. CANO AND R. GARCÍA-PERIAGO

submit videos explaining what Shakespeare meant to them, and to share

them online. A high school student from Washington DC, for instance,
noted that ‘Shakespeare means to me an escape, and through that escape,
a way to see the world differently, in a way that I didn’t know was possi-
ble before.’2
This celebratory impulse is paralleled by an Austen event in 2017. To
mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death (18 July 1817), the Jane
Austen Society of North America (JASNA) created a virtual memorial
book, inviting fans to post their tributes to the author. Like the high
school student quoted above, some readers observed that Austen’s novels
were an escape, and that they had also improved their lives. One JASNA
member wrote, ‘Dear Jane, your novels are my refuge, my happy place’;
another said ‘Thank you, dear Jane, for many hours of reading pleasure,
and for your charming heroines, your varied heroes, your foolish vicars
and especially for your wit. You have enriched my life.’3 The parallels
between readers’ devotion to Austen and to Shakespeare are obvious, and
probably unique. Readers worship Austen and Shakespeare with some-
thing close to religious veneration: ‘I’ve also visited your grave,’ writes the
first JASNA member quoted above; ‘Your remains may be in Winchester
but your spirit, intellect, wit, and talent are forever alive and adored.’
Such quasi-religious reverence is corroborated by another JASNA ini-
tiative, the Jane Austen Memorial Ceremony. On 18 July 2017, members
of the Society laid flowers on her grave at Winchester Cathedral
(Hampshire); this event concluded with a private religious ceremony and
a special Choral Evensong later in the day. That Jane Austen is revered,
perhaps even regarded as a saint, is undeniable. The same applies to
Shakespeare, the religious proportions of their fan cult being another
point of connection between the authors. One year earlier, Shakespeare’s
anniversary had been marked by a similar ritual. On 23 April 2016
(Shakespeare’s birthdate), the Prince of Wales laid a wreath of flowers on
Shakespeare’s grave at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. Like
the JASNA ceremony, this was accompanied by a prayer from the vicar and
a performance by the choir.
The religious reverence implied by these events is not new. Already in
1841, Thomas Carlyle proposed that Shakespeare should be canonized
because he and Dante were ‘Saints of Poetry’. ‘They are canonized’,
Carlyle continued, ‘though no Pope or Cardinals took hand in doing it!’4
Not long afterwards, W. D. Howells spoke of Jane Austen as a saintly fig-
ure, referring to her ‘adorers’ and ‘increasing cult’. She is, in short, ‘a
 1 INTRODUCTION: JANE AND WILL, THE LOVE STORY 5

passion and a creed, if not quite a religion’, Howells concluded.

Incidentally, he also ranked Austen alongside Shakespeare, observing that
Austen is first among her contemporaries, just as Shakespeare was first
among Elizabethan playwrights.5 That same year (1900) saw the installa-
tion of a memorial stained-glass window in Winchester Cathedral to hon-
our Austen. She was now unofficially beatified, even if, as in Shakespeare’s
case, no Pope had intervened.6
Perhaps, as more recent events show, fan adoration has been sufficient
to canonize both writers. In 2017, the JASNA Annual General Meeting
was titled ‘Paradise: Intimations of Immortality’, once more confirming
the worship of Austen and the eternal life conferred on her by her devo-
tees. The decorations used at the conference venue further illustrate this
point. The hotel exhibited a light-projected profile of Austen in the hall
(Fig. 1.2). Add to this a slanted wooden roof, the elevated position of this

Fig. 1.2 Decorations at the JASNA Annual General Meeting 2017. The Hyatt
Regency, Huntington Beach Resort and Spa, California (Photo by Lynda Hall)
6 M. CANO AND R. GARCÍA-PERIAGO

image, and a tribute of flowers underneath, and you have got yourself an
altar. (Austen’s image was indeed placed where the altar and the image of
Christ or the saints would be located).
Similarities with the 2016 Shakespeare celebrations are again striking.
Another special event, on 23 April 2016, was the Shakespeare Live! gala at
the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford. The Prince of Wales and the
Duchess of Cornwall attended as guests of honour; performances included
Shakespeare scenes by leading British actors Judi Dench, Ian McKellen,
Helen Mirren, Joseph Fiennes and Benedict Cumberbatch, among others.
Like the Austen AGM in California, Shakespeare Live! featured a light-­
projected head of the Bard as part of the special decorations for the day
(Fig. 1.3). Yet the similarities also end here: Shakespeare’s profile was rec-
reated as a ‘burning head’, with simulated flames, in contrast to the neon-­
illuminated head used for Austen. Shakespeare seemed to be on fire: he is
the genius author whose mind is always incandescent, always burning with
creative inspiration. Size is also telling: whereas Shakespeare’s silhouette

Fig. 1.3 Shakespeare’s silhouette at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford, as

part of the anniversary celebrations, 23 April 2016
 1 INTRODUCTION: JANE AND WILL, THE LOVE STORY 7

covered the whole front of the building (perhaps more like a pop star than
a saint here), Austen’s head was much smaller and was placed in the more
private and intimate space of the hotel’s hall, visible only to guests.
Event attendees also contribute to the differences in the cults of Austen
and Shakespeare. The JASNA Conference and the memorial service were
attended mostly by members of the society, and they were the ones who
laid the flowers on Austen’s grave at Winchester. In contrast, Shakespeare
Live! involved theatrical luminaries and British royalty, such as the afore-
mentioned Benedict Cumberbatch and Helen Mirren (celebrity generates
celebrity?), and the Prince of Wales, who personally placed the flower trib-
ute on Shakespeare’s grave. Even Barack Obama, then President of the
United States of America, marked Shakespeare’s anniversary by visiting
the Globe Theatre in London.7 No such thing for Austen, though, even
when dignitaries were involved in the celebrations. In July 2017, a new
statue of Austen was unveiled in Basingstoke (more on this later). Rather
than a member of the royal family or a governmental leader, local MP
Maria Miller uncovered the sculpture. Austen, this implies, is kept local;
while Shakespeare is regarded as a universal genius who attracts interna-
tional heads of state, Austen is seen as provincial, perhaps even parochial.
Such differences, and difference within similarity, are recurrent through-
out this volume. They are further illuminated in chapters by Marina Cano
(on how improvised drama implies a different branding of Austen and
Shakespeare, Chap. 11) and Lisa Hopkins (on the identification of Austen
with ‘cosy crime’, Chap. 14).
What emerges from the contributions in this volume, and from the
celebrations recorded above, is the culturally insatiable appetite for Austen
and Shakespeare. This is the main point of connection between the
authors. Today, Shakespeare and Austen are found everywhere, as the
Folger exhibition made clear: from plastic dolls, baby clothing and fridge
magnets to university syllabi, academic papers and books such as ours. For
those who want to inhabit the world of their heroes and heroines, there is
a series of board games available, taking the intrepid fan to Elizabethan or
Regency England.8 For those who want to speak like their favourite char-
acters, there are several Shakespeare and Austen online insult generators.
A quick search gives us the following ammunition for daily repartee: ‘Thou
abominable shard-borne boar-pig!’ (Shakespeare) and ‘You cow-handed
windsucker’ (Austen).9
8 M. CANO AND R. GARCÍA-PERIAGO

The convergence of Austen and Shakespeare in a volume such as this,

therefore, needs little justification. The two are unique in being simultane-
ously popular and highbrow, and in having become an integral part of
many readers’ daily lives. Emma Thompson, who wrote the script for Ang
Lee’s Sense and Sensibility (1995), has confessed that ‘Jane Austen saved
me from going under’ by helping her to deal with mental health issues
after the collapse of her first marriage.10 Along similar lines, academic and
prison volunteer Laura Bates titled her memoir Shakespeare Saved My
Life—in this case, the lives of the high-security prisoners, including a
multi-murderer, to whom she taught Shakespeare.11 Jane Austen has also
been taken behind bars: Michael Verderame, professor at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, taught Persuasion at Danville Correctional
Center, a medium-high security men’s prison. Verderame notes that stu-
dents warmed to this Austen novel as a story of second chances, set against
the background of the Napoleonic Wars.12 As for the scholarly side of the
Jane and Will equation, Austen and Shakespeare are incontrovertible pil-
lars of British literature. American critic Harold Bloom—whose infamous
canon of Western literature included just twenty-six authors, of which only
four were women—notes that ‘Austen’s work possesses an uncanniness, a
certain mode of originality. She created personality, character, and cogni-
tion; she brought into being new modes of consciousness. Like Shakespeare,
Austen invented us.’13

The Love Story Since 1813

The alliance between Austen and Shakespeare has been a recurrent theme
in literary criticism over the last 200 years. The first time the authors were
brought together (their first date?) was probably in 1813, during Austen’s
lifetime. The matchmaker (Emma Woodhouse style) was an anonymous
reviewer who compared Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet to Shakespeare’s
Beatrice. Elizabeth, the reviewer noted, ‘whose archness and sweetness of
manner render her a very attractive object in the family piece’, is ‘in fact
the Beatrice of the tale; and falls in love on much the same principles of
contrariety’.14 This must also have been one of the first essays to conduct
a character critique of Austen: as Joanne Wilkes examines in Chap. 2, for
the next 100 years, reviewers would focus primarily on Austen’s characters
in their assessments. One such reviewer was Richard Whately, who, in
1821, remarked that Austen’s fools were reminiscent of Shakespeare’s: for
 1 INTRODUCTION: JANE AND WILL, THE LOVE STORY 9

example, Slender, Shallow and Aguecheek bore comparison with Mrs

Bennet, Mr Rushworth and Miss Bates.15
It was in the 1840s and 1850s that the Austen–Shakespeare partnership
became popularized, largely thanks to Thomas Babington Macaulay and
George Henry Lewes. Like others before him, Macaulay praised the real-
ism of Austen’s characters; he observed that, although ‘Shakspeare [sic]
has had neither equal nor second’, Austen is the only author who has
‘approached nearest to the manner of the great master’.16 The issue of
realism would concern subsequent critics, Lewes included. More impor-
tantly, Macaulay’s notion that Austen plays only second fiddle to
Shakespeare seems to have carried into the twenty-first century, as recent
anniversary events suggest. Lewes’s views on Austen and Shakespeare are
compellingly reassessed by Wilkes in Chap. 2. Suffice it to say here that
Lewes is one of the most outspoken champions of Austen’s genius of the
mid-nineteenth century. He sees her as superior to Walter Scott, and closer
to Shakespeare than any other author: ‘In spite of the sense of incongruity
which besets us in the words prose Shakespeare, we confess the greatness
of Miss Austen, her marvellous dramatic power, seems more than any
thing in Scott akin to the greatest quality in Shakespeare.’17 As flattering as
Lewes’s critique is, there are still some misgivings (a ‘sense of incongruity’
in the comparison). This is part of the ‘limitation discourse’ surrounding
Austen, which is rooted in the idea that since Austen had limited experi-
ence of the world, the quality and scope of her literary output must con-
sequently be limited too.18 Shakespeare’s ambitious plays, in contrast,
showcase a wide range of human emotion and take audiences to Italy,
Cyprus, Scotland, Denmark and beyond.
By the late Victorian period, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate, was
echoing the ‘limitations discourse’. Comparing Austen to Shakespeare,
Tennyson observed that ‘Austen is to Shakespeare as asteroid to sun. Miss
Austen’s novels are perfect works on a small scale—beautiful bits of stip-
pling.’19 More so than Macaulay, Tennyson deems Austen second best
only. Lewes himself might have claimed that he would rather have written
Pride and Prejudice than the Waverley novels, but one might wonder if he
would not rather have written Hamlet or Macbeth instead. Interestingly,
the last decades of the nineteenth century cite earlier critics on Austen and
Shakespeare. So, for instance, an article in The Englishwoman’s Domestic
Magazine (1878) directly quotes and summarizes Whately’s comment on
the fools.20 This citation of Whately’s review, more than fifty years later,
exposes a chain of connections, productions and reproductions of Austen,
10 M. CANO AND R. GARCÍA-PERIAGO

Shakespeare and their alliance. It is through this type of repetition, citation

and recitation that the authors become the iconic figures they are in the
twenty-first century—both separately and together. Interestingly,
Whately’s opinion appears again in the periodical press one century later,
in an article in The Irish Times (January 1973), titled ‘In Search of Jane
Austen’.21 Perhaps, to search for Jane Austen, one might assume from this,
is to search for Shakespeare too.
In the twentieth century, as The Irish Times confirms, the Austen–
Shakespeare romance endured. Early critics had resorted to Shakespeare
comparisons as a way to validate Austen’s novels—and indeed, as Wilkes
shows, some continued to do so into the 1900s. In this sense, Reverend
Montague Summers stands out: in 1917, the year that marked the 100th
anniversary of Austen’s death, Montague Summers gave his Austen lec-
ture to the Royal Society of Literature. Rather than likening her characters
to Shakespeare’s, as a sign of her genius, Montague Summers made the
Bard’s protagonists accessories to Austen’s. He inverted habitual literary
hierarchies by asserting that ‘In the whole of English literature there are
no such men and women as Jane Austen’s, the only figures which do not
suffer by comparison with hers being the men and women of Shakespeare
himself.’22 Unlike Tennyson and other early critics, Montague Summers
opines that Austen’s characters are the better creations, and that
Shakespeare’s are the only ones that do not pale in comparison. This is
Macaulay the other way around.
Another positive, and well known, appreciation of Austen and
Shakespeare’s kinship is Virginia Woolf’s. In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf
famously compared their literary skill and general approach: both, Woolf
argued, had written ‘without hate, without bitterness, without fear, with-
out protest, without preaching’, and ‘for that reason we do not know Jane
Austen and we do not know Shakespeare’. Whereas other writers, notably
Charlotte Brontë, had written in anger, Austen and Shakespeare had man-
aged to remain outside their texts.23 Woolf is here inadvertently addressing
the issue we raised earlier (Why Jane Austen and William Shakespeare?)
Also, she is hinting at the reason why they might have become such cult
figures today. If one cannot find Austen or Shakespeare in their texts, the
only thing one can do is to keep searching; readers and audiences are
attempting the impossible, hoping to find the absent author. This line of
analysis is taken up by Robert Bearman (Chap. 3) in his discussion of the
dearth of biographical data about these two authors, and recurs across the
Other documents randomly have
different content
 There is one form of publicity before election, if it may be
considered such, which while not a matter of public discussion would
seem advisable in any event. Laws should require that all candidates
must be furnished with daily accounts of the financial operations both
as to receipts and expenditures of campaign committees and others
acting in their interest. Even under the old régime of secrecy
scandalous exposures sometimes occurred. Confronted by such
untoward circumstances partisans always urged in defence that the
candidate himself was the soul of honesty and that he was as
ignorant as a new-born babe of the dirty work carried on by a handful
of irresponsible and corrupt friends. No doubt there have been many
cases where the moral insulation thus alleged really existed. On the
other hand some of these pleas in defence and extenuation were
abject farces. They should be prevented once for all by providing
that every candidate must be fully and promptly informed regarding
the financial conditions of his campaign. Indeed he is entitled to this
information in advance of the public, for his personal honour is at
stake. If, then, he should disapprove of the measures employed in
his behalf he can take such action as may seem desirable to clear
his reputation. If, on the other hand, he is willing that dubious
methods should be resorted to, let him not attempt to play upon the
credulity of the public in case of exposure.[81] It is notorious that the
last refuge of a discredited machine is the nomination of a man
whose personal honesty is above suspicion, and his election by
every possible crooked device. While the campaign is going on the
“irreproachable candidate” is kept carefully in ignorance of the
methods of his more “practical” managers. After the election he may
be told of them if it is necessary to force his compliance to corrupt
bargains made in his behalf. Pre-election campaign publicity for the
particular information of candidates ought to make it more difficult for
a machine in extremis to save itself by the nomination of
“irreproachables.” Or if they are nominated they will at least be able
to insist on the “irreproachable” conduct of their campaign. In any
event such publicity would provide the voters with candidates of
whom it might be assumed in every case that they knew exactly
what sort of methods were being used to secure their election.
 The question of campaign publicity involves, of course, the further
question as to what organisations and officials shall make reports of
contributions and expenditures. In a general way this duty, which
originally was laid only upon candidates has been extended
sweepingly to party committees and similar bodies. The language of
the congressional bill referred to above is extremely broad, but it
does not settle all the questions that may arise on this point.
Associations may be formed which without nominating candidates of
their own or undertaking other definitely partisan activities may
nevertheless profoundly affect the outcome of an election. A curious
illustration of this point may be found in the Missouri law of 1907,[82]
which provided that civic leagues making reports on the fitness of
candidates for public office must also publish the basis of their
information and file statements of their expenses. It is manifest that
leagues of this character, which seldom if ever nominate candidates
of their own, may nevertheless come under the control of
contributing interests and use their considerable influence to affect
elections corruptly. Other illustrations are supplied by large
organisations devoted to the propaganda of a given cause. In a tariff
campaign, for example, both free trade and protectionist leagues
might raise and expend enormous sums in a way that would
materially affect the result at the polls. There is at least the possibility
of evasion and trouble in this direction, mitigated, however, by the
fact that in general the work of propagandist leagues will be
educational and free from grosser offences such as bribery of voters.
Finally there is the possibility of large direct individual expenditures
by warm friends or near relatives in favour of a given candidacy. This
was met in the congressional bill by requiring reports of expenditures
by persons other than members of campaign committees in excess
of $50, not, however, including travelling expenses or postage,
telegraph, and telephone charges.[83] Legislation compelling all
contributors to make their contributions through campaign
committees,[84] or forbidding the direct use of money by individuals
may suffice to overcome this difficulty if it should ever become
threatening.
 Publicity laws have done something to fix responsibility for
collections by specifying the nature of organisations which are
compelled to report and further by requiring the appointment of
certain financial officials in such organisations. It would seem difficult
to go further in a legal way. There is, however, a manifest impropriety
in the appointment of persons to do this work who through the
exercise of their own official power or because of knowledge gained
while in office could use threats express or implied in approaching
prospective contributors. At its worst this amounts to a subtle sort of
corrupt blackmail which is only slightly veiled; at its best it may be
condoned as a political device formerly considered clever but now so
generally reprobated as to be dangerous. The general recognition of
the purpose of such appointments should be sufficient to prevent the
naming as party collectors of officials who come, have come, or are
to come into contact with the business world through the exercise of
the taxing or supervisory powers of government.
Closely associated with the subject of publicity is the question of
the prohibition or limitation of contributions from various sources.
Absolute prohibition, of course, could come only as a corollary to a
system of government appropriations for campaign expenses. Under
a mixed system of support or with wholly voluntary support,
prohibition or limitation of certain kinds of contributions may be
attempted by law. Of course there is a possibility that with publicity
fully secured obnoxious contributions may become, through fear of
criticism, extremely rare. Quite a number of states, however, have
deemed it necessary to supplement their publicity acts with acts
prohibiting or restricting certain kinds of contributions.
The most common objects of such prohibitions are, of course, the
corporations. As early as 1894, Mr. Elihu Root, speaking in the New
York Constitutional Convention in favour of an amendment
prohibiting contributions from such sources, said:—“It strikes at a
constantly growing evil which has done more to shake the
confidence of the plain people of small means of this country in our
political institutions than any other practice which has ever obtained
since the foundation of our government.” Even now that the turning
point has been passed and we are clearly on the way to better things
there are few students of our public life who would dissent from Mr.
Root’s judgment of the seriousness of the question raised by
corporate contributions to campaign funds. Missouri, Nebraska,
Tennessee, and Florida, were pioneers in acting on this conviction,
all four having passed laws in 1897 absolutely forbidding such gifts.
[85] Several states followed in a desultory fashion until in 1907 a
sudden burst of legislative activity occurred as a result of the New
York insurance revelations. In that one year no fewer than eleven
states passed laws forbidding life insurance companies to contribute,
and five other states forbade all corporations of whatever sort to
make contributions to campaign funds.
It is frequently objected to laws of this character that they are
worthless because they can readily be evaded. A corporation may
secretly direct one of its officials to make a large contribution with the
understanding that the money is to be returned to him later,
concealed, it may be, in the price paid for some property which he
sells the corporation. No doubt evasion of this sort is possible, but it
will hardly become common because it involves the collusion of so
many men not only in the management of the corporation but also in
the party management, all of whom will fully understand the criminal
nature of the transaction. On the corporation side, moreover, the act
remains a gift, and withal a gift of a much more hazardous nature
and one much less certain to bring returns than such gifts are
reputed to have been in the past. Now even under the most
favourable circumstances giving, whether by corporations or by
individuals, is a somewhat painful process. The absence of souls in
the case of the former does not seem to make their feeling of
sacrifice any the less keen. It is highly improbable, therefore, that in
addition to this natural obstacle and other disadvantages
corporations are likely to run the risks of penal law frequently in order
that they may bestow their surplus wealth upon party organisations.
Of course there are corporations so largely owned by individuals
and so thoroughly identified with the latter that a contribution from
them may seem to amount to the same thing as a contribution from
the corporation. Technically, however, the money must be offered as
a personal gift, and party managers might defend themselves on this
score in case the contributor afterwards demanded a corrupt favour
in the interest of his corporation. If the public remains suspicious of
such large personal contributions by corporate managers the further
step may be taken of fixing by law the maximum amount to be
contributed by any individual.
Considering the special disabilities which have been laid upon
corporations in the matter of campaign contributions it is indeed
remarkable that similar restrictions have not been suggested for
other associations. Either by gradually extending this policy or by a
single sweeping measure the right of contribution may finally be
brought to as purely individual a basis as the right of suffrage itself.
Some partnerships, particularly in manufacturing and the express
business, have been notorious seekers after special privileges, but
not being corporations there is nothing to prevent them from
contributing largely to campaign funds. Labour unions might be
developed into very heavy contributors to campaign funds. Although
in the latter case the contributions would come from a great number
of individuals giving relatively small amounts each, yet the machinery
of organisation and the emulation it could excite among the
members might prove potent in producing very large sums in the
aggregate. The same considerations apply to clubs, whether purely
social or propagandist in character, which can contribute great sums
without revealing the identity of large donors among their members,
—except perhaps privately to the financial officers of a campaign
committee. If publicity reveals any such abuses legislation to correct
them along the same lines as our present corporate prohibitions may
prove desirable.
Next to contributions by corporations political contributions from
candidates would seem to stand most in need of restriction. The
English Corrupt and Illegal Practice Prevention Act is very explicit
and drastic on this subject. It even goes to the length of forbidding
contributions for charitable purposes subsequent to the public
announcement of the candidate’s intention to stand for a borough.
Our own legislation, however, has been very fragmentary except in
so far as candidates were affected by the general publicity
requirements. By an act which went into effect, August, 1892,
Massachusetts prohibited political committees from soliciting
contributions from candidates who, however, might “make a
voluntary payment of money—for the promotion of the principles of
the party which the committee represents, and for the general
purposes of the committee.” While doubtless excellent as a
statement of ideal relations it is questionable whether this enactment
materially increased the obstacles intervening between campaign
committees and candidates’ pocketbooks. At least the legislature of
the same state found it necessary in 1908 to provide that political
committees should not solicit money from a candidate as a
prerequisite to giving him his nomination papers.[86] A new departure
was made by the Ohio law of 1896, known as the Garfield Act,[87]
which endeavoured to grade candidates’ expenses according to the
number of votes cast, limiting them to $100 for five thousand voters
or less, and providing that they should not exceed $650 in any case.
[88] In case of violation the office of a successful candidate could be
declared vacant at any time during his term. California, Missouri,
Montana, Minnesota, and New York, have also attempted the
limitation of candidates’ contributions or expenditures.[89] In 1895,
Connecticut and New York forbade contributions by candidates
except to authorised committees or party agents.[90] California, in
1907, adopted the rather doubtful expedient of limiting contributions
from candidates according to the length of term and salary of the
office for which they are contesting.[91] Perhaps the most significant
step that has been taken in this direction was the action of New York
which in 1906 prohibited contributions from candidates for judicial
offices.[92]
With these exceptions contributions by candidates are in general
free from legal regulation. There have been comparatively few great
exposures to awaken the public conscience to the abuses that have
grown up in this connection, but as to the widespread and extremely
scandalous nature of these abuses no one who is in the least
familiar with practical politics can have the slightest doubt. Broadly
considered any large contribution by a candidate toward his own
election is manifestly indelicate, not to say frankly improper. Custom
has rendered us so familiar with this practice, however, that we are
inclined to accept it as a matter of course. There is a certain
gambling spirit inherent in politics which is profoundly potent for evil.
Primarily this is due, of course, to the inevitable uncertainties of
campaigning. No single factor contributes to it more largely than the
habit of “assessing” candidates for office. Honest and able men are
frequently repelled from politics when they encounter this system.
Some of them may hesitate to make the material sacrifices involved
and are consequently deemed miserly by the politicians, although it
is not the amount of money demanded but rather the uses to which
these men know the money will be put that leads them to withdraw. It
is not too much to maintain that the conditions now existing in many
places are worse than the property qualifications once required by
law to make one eligible to hold office. Our present “voluntary”
contribution system, rendered practically obligatory by party
authorities, is more burdensome on the candidate than a property
qualification because it requires him not only to have property but
also to sacrifice a considerable part of it to obtain office or the
chance of office. The old property qualifications were really lighter
and more democratic since they merely required prospective office
holders to own so much, and all who possessed more than this fixed
sum were eligible equally. The existing system which allows
voluntary contributions by candidates unlimited as to amount is
equivalent to a property qualification interpreted in the light of the
prospective generosity of the candidate. Party managers are
continually under temptation to name the man who has the more
money and can be expected to make the larger contribution. Of
course this does not mean that the man with the biggest “bar’l” is
always nominated. Other qualifications such as the man’s education,
character, and equipment for campaigning, must be taken into
account as well as his ability and inclination to pay. Or if one
candidate is placed on the ticket solely because of his liberality the
general average must be raised by a larger admixture of brains and
character on the part of his running mates. So long as candidates’
contributions are unlimited as to amount we are, nevertheless,
openly tolerating conditions which give the maximum effect to wealth
as a qualification for public office. True we wish to encourage our
men of wealth to go into politics, but we desire them to do so on the
basis of their brains and character, not on the basis of their dollars.
Even without the use of money in their own interest they enjoy a
tremendous advantage for candidacy in their leisure and freedom
from material cares. On the other hand the multi-millionaire backed
almost solely by his own wealth and unlimited as to the amount he
can spend on his campaigning has already caused considerable
annoyance in our political life and is likely to become an unmitigated
nuisance if checks are not applied betimes. Although cases of this
sort are relatively infrequent as yet they are likely to occur more
commonly in the future. Business prizes have been so large until
recently that they have absorbed the attention of most of our men of
wealth. To our captains of industry the money rewards of an office
were as nothing, and the honour it conferred added little to their
importance. Washington’s recently acquired prominence as a winter
residence for wealthy families may appear to be nothing more than a
whim of gilded society, but the relationships thus established are
certain to stimulate political ambitions in new quarters. With
increasing power and social prestige attached to office,[93] more
owners of great fortunes are likely to enter politics in the future. In
general we have every reason to rejoice that this is the case, but we
should also endeavour to adjust the terms of competition so that no
undue political weight shall be given to the brute force of millions.
Underlying the system of contributions by candidates is the
uncritical view that the latter should pay largely because they are to
enjoy personally the honours and emoluments of office. Nominees,
at least successful nominees, are deemed to be the special
favourites of the party, and hence morally obligated to contribute
generously to its support. Little consideration is given by those
holding such views to the tremendous tax laid upon the vitality of
candidates by the strenuous modern methods of campaigning,
certainly a burden large enough in most cases to justify their
exemption from heavy financial contributions in addition. But there
are other and more serious logical defects in the theory justifying
such impositions upon candidates. Normally, of course, assessments
of this character must be recouped out of the earnings of the office,
although it is said sometimes to happen that the sum demanded for
campaign expenses is larger than the salary for the entire term of
occupancy. One of our states, as we have seen, attempts to limit
candidates’ contributions to a certain ratio of official earnings.[94] The
clear implication of all this is that the salary of office is considered to
represent first, a payment for the public services rendered by the
office holder, and second, a surplus over the preceding which should
be devoted to campaign expenses. If we accept this view we virtually
accept the principle of the payment of campaign expenses in part at
least by the state. One who repudiated this principle might therefore
consistently demand the reduction of all official salaries by the
amount of the campaign surplus which they contain over and above
the value of services actually rendered by incumbents. As a matter
of fact such a reduction would be most unfortunate, the truth being,
as we have already had occasion to note, that most official salaries
in the United States are too low. And, finally, a consistent believer in
the principle of the payment of campaign contributions by the state
might object to its realisation through the underhanded and coercive
method of assessments levied upon candidates. Some perfectly
frank and legal method of administering the subsidy would be far
preferable.
Both in practice and theory, therefore, grave objections may be
urged against a laisser faire policy in regard to campaign
contributions by candidates. Effective publicity may possibly suffice
to bring the abuses which have developed in this connection within
bounds. The existing system, however, is old, widespread, and
deeply entrenched. Public sentiment against it is far from being so
strong as the facts warrant. Particularly significant in this connection
is the recent action of New York in prohibiting contributions from
judicial candidates. Doubtless the reason for this special limitation
was the peculiar sanctity and impartiality which we associate with the
functions of the judiciary. Yet in ideal at least these high qualities
should attach to other public offices. So far, therefore, as the sanctity
and impartiality of public office in general can be cultivated by
prohibiting or limiting campaign contributions we should apply the
reform to the legislative and administrative branches of government
as well as to the judiciary.
It is worth noting that complete prohibition of such contributions, as
in the New York instance, will probably involve the limitation of
contributions by others than candidates. A judicial or other nominee
prohibited by law from using money on his own behalf might, for
example, knowingly or unknowingly, owe his election largely to a few
rich supporters who perhaps would not hesitate at some later time to
try to use the influence which they had thus obtained. Indeed it is
one of the redeeming features of the present system that men of
ample means have sometimes bought independence in office by
financing their own campaigns. If, therefore, it should prove desirable
to restrict candidates’ contributions in the future, care should also be
taken to limit the contributions of third parties. Otherwise the latter,
by assuming the financial burden taken from the shoulders of
nominees might attempt to purchase political influence on which they
could realise after those whom they assisted had obtained office.
While the foregoing argument has been directed chiefly to the
case of candidates for elective office it is also applicable in some
particulars to the campaign contributions of officials under civil
service rules. Usually efforts are made with a considerable degree of
success to protect the latter from the assessment system. The old
abuse of extortion by officials of higher rank is in a fair way to be
obliterated, although sporadic cases of this sort still occur even in the
federal service. Unfortunately it is easy to appoint collectors who
themselves hold no office under civil service rules, but whose
intimate personal relations with high officials are widely known to
subordinates. Civil service employees of higher grades are probably
too well informed of their rights to submit to extortion veiled in this or
any other guise, but there are doubtless considerable numbers of the
less intelligent and poorly paid civil servants, at least in some of our
state and local governments, who are really being assessed
frequently and heavily under the pretence, of course, of “voluntary”
contributions. Probably it is true everywhere that those who suffer
worst from this despicable malpractice are precisely those who are
least able to bear it. Even this, however, is not the chief evil of the
system. Absolute non-partisanship in their official work can hardly be
expected of a body of men who are constantly being approached for
campaign contributions, and in effect being reminded thereby that,
civil service or no civil service, they are deemed to be subject in a
peculiar degree to party taxation. Moreover one of the great
weaknesses of the civil service establishment is the conviction on
the part of the opposition party, inevitable whether or not it be
justifiable, that civil service employees are being exploited for
contributions by the party in power. Publicity may dispel both this
abuse, so far as it exists, and also the misconceptions based upon it.
If not it may prove desirable in the future to prohibit absolutely all
campaign contributions from employees under civil service rules.
Administration will certainly be much easier and suspicion more
difficult when no contribution whatever is legally permissible than
under any system which permits “voluntary” offerings.
In addition to the prohibition or limitation of campaign contributions
from certain specified sources the suggestion has been touched
upon that it may prove desirable in the end to limit the campaign
contributions of individuals. Just what theoretical basis might be
found for fixing the exact amount of such limitation is not clear.
Possibly the number of voters, the number of candidates, and the
estimated legitimate costs of a given campaign could be combined in
some way to give a definite result. In practice, however, the question
of fixing a satisfactory limit to individual contributions will hardly
present any great difficulty. Evasion of such limitations by means of
dummy contributors is, as we have seen,[95] not very probable.
There ought, however, to be a very stringent penalty against the
custom of handing considerable sums to campaign treasurers
personally with the understanding that the amount shall be turned in
as the individual contribution of the treasurer himself. Limitation of
the amount of individual contributions, together with the other
safeguards that have been discussed, may prove a very effective
substitute for ante-election publicity. If we are assured that
corporation contributions are barred, that the contributions of
candidates and civil service employees are either prohibited or
strictly limited, and finally that the contributions of others are limited
to relatively small amounts, it becomes a matter of distinctly minor
importance to know who are the financial supporters on either side.
Given these conditions the publication of such information would
scarcely attract any notice even during the heat of a campaign.
As a first effect the restriction of contributions according to all or a
part of the various propositions discussed above would probably
reduce the aggregate of campaign funds considerably. It remains to
be seen whether this will have an unfavourable influence upon our
political life. Shocked by the magnitude of the sums recently
employed many of our social doctors would advise rigorous
starvation and copious bloodletting as essential to the radical cure of
our campaign diseases. In spite of the necessity of parties under the
conditions of American government public prejudice is strongly
inclined to underestimate the value of party work. Yet considering the
size of the country and the magnitude of the interests involved it is
doubtful if the amount expended in the last presidential election, to
cite a specific instance, was uneconomical. Certainly an even larger
sum could be spent profitably along educational lines in our greater
campaigns. One trouble now is that quite apart from the illegal or
immoral practices charged against American campaign managers
the latter have in too many cases carried on their activities in a
conventional fashion which is rather ineffective and wasteful.
Thousands of dollars are spent in circulating documents and
speeches. Yet printed matter of this character is so cheap and nasty
in appearance, so unattractive in form, so devoid of illustration, and
often so dry and prolix that it is promptly and deservedly thrust into
the waste-basket by practically all recipients. Progressive business
men have learned the value of modern forms of advertising in
newspapers, magazines, street cars, etc., but the political manager
seldom employs it with any effect. In many districts illustrated
lectures would be an enormous improvement over the cheap
mouthings of the ordinary cart-tail spell-binder. Campaign text-books,
as the term is at present understood, are at best dry and formal
arsenals of fact fit only for the higher grade of speakers and leaders,
or, at worst, mere hodge-podge collections of sensational clippings
useful only to equip already convinced partisans with a few
accusations and arguments which they can then monotonously
parrot forth from the beginning to the end of the campaign.
Constructed with some regard to pedagogical principles and popular
requirements such books might be made extremely influential. By
these and other improved methods our campaigns may finally come
to be worth what they cost. Certainly few services are of more
importance in a democracy than rousing the people to political
issues, instructing them as to men and policies, leading them out
from narrow personal concerns to participation in the broad life of the
state. Even with all the restrictions on the collection of campaign
funds which have been mentioned above it is improbable that
sufficient funds for all legitimate purposes will in the long run be
denied. If any shortage threatens, campaign managers may better
their situation by the same policy which any institution dependent
upon public support must follow under similar circumstances,—that
is, they must so impress the value of the work they are doing upon
the people that ample material support will be freely offered. If this
cannot be done they will simply have to get along with less, the
probability being, of course, that the smaller amount is quite as much
as is necessary and certainly as much as they deserve.
One certain consequence of the prohibition of large contributions
will be greater activity on the part of campaign collectors to secure
contributions in smaller amounts. This would seem desirable in every
way. Until we commit ourselves to the principle of state subsidies it
ought to be part of common school instruction everywhere to insist
on the duty of the voter to contribute something toward party
support. Possibly large contributions might be found unobjectionable
in the future if given for some specific purpose, the circulation of a
certain speech, for example, or some other educational form of
political activity. Considering the abuses which have been charged
against campaign managers the almost universal habit of making
gifts to them on a carte blanche basis is remarkable to say the least.
Taking a suggestion from educational practice, large campaign
contributions might be further legitimatised in case it were stipulated,
that equal amounts should be raised in small sums by campaign
managers. If the time be short in which to comply with a condition of
this sort, the interest in such collections, on the other hand, would be
very great. Certainly it could scarcely be argued that a sum thus
collected represented nothing more than the selfish desire of a rich
man to promote one of his personal interests.
Besides prohibiting or limiting contributions from certain sources it
may also prove desirable to fix time limits within which large gifts
may not be received. Among other conditions voluntarily accepted in
1908 the Democratic National Committee pledged itself to receive no
contribution above $100 within three days of the election. The time
limit in this case was scarcely long enough to be very impressive, but
the principle involved is of some importance. Such facts as we
possess with regard to the history of campaign funds indicate “fat-
frying” of a most strenuous and compromising character during the
last few days preceding an election. Alarmist and hysterical reports
about doubtful states were prepared on both sides and presented
tearfully and confidentially to men of wealth, to candidates, and to
other persons from whom money might perchance be obtainable.
The probability is very strong that the great sums thus raised and of
necessity spent at the eleventh hour were more largely subject to
waste, theft, and corrupt use, than any other money which was
placed in the hands of campaign managers. Prohibition of
contributions within a short period prior to election or their limitation
in amount during such period ought to reduce this evil considerably,
at least on the collecting side. If subjected to such a restriction
campaign managers will, of course, seek to secure as large a sum
as possible before the time limit expires, and they will also take care
to keep a sufficient reserve on hand for the culminating needs of the
campaign. Nevertheless they will be pretty effectually estopped from
calamity howling at the last minute as a means of obtaining large
additional “slush” funds.
A very important question is raised by one section of the
Wisconsin law of 1897,[96] which provides that contributions to aid
certain candidates may be made only by residents of their districts.
So far as ascertainable this is the only case of a geographical
limitation upon the gathering of campaign funds. It is a matter of
common knowledge that in national contests very great sums
collected on the outside are poured into doubtful states, sometimes
with material influence upon the results. Large amounts of money
are occasionally massed in a single district to elect a particularly
strong, or to defeat a particularly obnoxious member of Congress. In
state and local contests the same sort of financial manipulation is not
unusual. Our laws, unlike those of England, do not permit plural
voting. An American citizen votes where he resides. No matter how
great may be his property holdings he cannot vote elsewhere. But he
may spend his dollars anywhere in support of candidates and
policies, or his contributions may be similarly employed by the party
managers to whom they are handed. It is too early to discuss the
equities of a situation the moral obliquity of which is as yet so dimly
perceived. A principle of some importance, however, would seem to
underlie the Wisconsin prohibition against invasion by foreign
campaign contributions.
Assuming publicity and other necessary restrictions of campaign
funds to have been put into effect, the question may be raised as to
whether business interests could secure proper hearing for
themselves in political affairs. It must be conceded at once that
government should act always with due regard to economic factors.
Many campaign contributions of times past, including even some of
the most objectionable, were made by business men who felt that
while by so doing they were pledging public officials in their favour
they were at the same time pledging these officials to that course of
conduct which was best for the prosperity and welfare of the country
as a whole. Quite apart from all moral considerations such
contributions were looked upon as a sort of business tax, made
necessary by our democratic political conditions, and as such
fundamentally justifiable. There is no excuse for not knowing better
now; in a short time there will be absolutely no justification for
tolerating contributions made on this basis. Business men who
pursued the old policy were following what looked like a short and
easy cut to their immediate ends. In reality they were piling up class
hatred, restrictive legislation, obnoxious taxes, and various
instalments of socialism. Fortunately this destructive process, so far
as objectionable campaign contributions minister to it, is likely to be
checked. But legitimate businesses, including big monopolistic
concerns properly conducted, will not be debarred by publicity and
the regulation of campaign contributions from the use of a great
many open and effective means of bringing their interests to the
attention of government. Of course grafting business will receive a
set-back, but this is exactly what is desired. Our great economic
interests would probably be in a far healthier condition to-day if they
had employed legitimate agencies only in the past, and neglected
altogether the short and dangerous cut to political influence offered
by large campaign contributions. Business is now learning the value
of frank and honest methods of dealing with the people, of publicity
on its own account as contrasted with the old public-be-damned
attitude. Internal reforms of business practices, the correction of
abuses from within and by insiders, are seen to be much less costly
than the application of legislative sledge-hammers. The American
people is far from radical at heart. Given full and honest expositions
of the case for business it is highly improbable that rash and
destructive policies will triumph in the future, any more than they
were wont to triumph in time past when business interests fought
them in a manner scarcely less objectionable than the subversive
policies themselves. And always back of the public opinion and
temper of the people there are constitutional guaranties and the
courts to maintain them,—safeguards stronger in all probability than
those possessed by property in any other civilised nation in the world
to-day.[97] Manifestly it will require much more than a reform of our
present system of collecting campaign funds to prevent the proper
and adequate hearing by governmental authorities of the legitimate
business interests of the country.
By way of objection to such limitations of campaign contributions
as have been proposed it might be urged that since gifts of services
as well as gifts of money are made to campaign committees the
former as well as the latter must logically be subjected to regulation.
In certain cases it may be admitted that regulation of services is
necessary. Particularly is this true of civil service employees. It is by
no means improbable that it may be found advisable to enforce by
law their complete abstention from all kinds of political work, leaving
them nothing beyond the right to cast their vote. Certainly a very
considerable amount of trouble is experienced at the present time in
keeping them clearly within the legal, but not always self-evident,
lines drawn by civil service acts and rulings. With this exception,
perhaps, there would seem to be every reason to leave campaign
contributions of services free from every restriction but publicity. No
means should be neglected of encouraging the widest possible
participation by amateurs in party activities and party management,
and this is one such means. It is true, of course, that the services of
some exceptionally able men may be equivalent to money gifts of
tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and also that such gifts
may not be equally or even proportionally divided among the parties.
Normally, however, the differences between individuals as to their
political abilities are not to be compared in magnitude to the existing
enormous differences in wealth which have made regulation of
money contributions a necessity. And if one party is pre-eminently
the gainer through gifts of services by brilliant men certainly it would
seem to deserve any advantage thus obtained. Its rivals may thereby
learn the value of the enthusiastic support of men of talent, and
bestir themselves to revise their own programmes so that such men
may be induced to enlist in their fighting columns. It is possible that
minor parties and reform movements are relatively more successful
in this way than the great parties. If so no dislocation of the political
balance of power is likely to be occasioned by a policy of regulation
of monetary contributions coupled with laisser faire as to
contributions of services. Usually the strength of minor parties in
enthusiastic personal support will still find itself more than
outmatched by the strength of the old line parties in traditional fealty,
in practical experience, and in greater monetary resources.
Whatever additional reform measures may be suggested by
further experience with regard to the publicity and restriction of
campaign contributions, two broad general principles would seem to
apply in the application of all legislation of this character.
First, the subject is clearly one of state and local as well as of
national politics. The two former are subject to the same abuses as
the latter. State and local politics are immensely important in
themselves. They touch the daily affairs of the great mass of the
people much more closely than do national politics. Moreover there
is danger that with campaign fund reform in national affairs only, no
matter how thorough it might be, the neglect of similar reforms in
state and local politics would facilitate the evasion of national law. At
least it would seem to make it possible to use large funds in local
and state contests in such a way as to help indirectly but very
materially the national interests of one or the other party. Fortunately
some of our most important states have already provided for a
measure of publicity sufficient to reduce this possibility so far as they
are concerned. The danger will not be much lessened, however, until
their example has been followed generally. Still it is hardly to be
regretted that at the present time the major public interest is centred
in the great presidential contest. There is no danger that the object
lesson voluntarily given by the two national parties in 1908 will be
forgotten by the American people either in succeeding presidential
campaigns or in our minor state and city elections. But while we are
securing the great political front door let us remember that the horse
may also be stolen if we neglect to lock the numerous side and back
doors.
Secondly, our primary and convention system is subject to the
same abuses in the use of money as the election system proper.
Indeed in states solid one way or the other it is probable that corrupt
practices are more common in connection with nominations, where
there may be sharp fighting, than in the subsequent cut and dried
election. Organic reforms of a most sweeping character are in
process in this field,[98] and when the time is ripe it would seem to be
an easy matter to graft upon them the requirement of publicity of
nominating expenses and other restrictions upon primary
contributions similar in a general way to the restrictions now being
imposed upon campaign contributions. A start has already been
made in this direction. By a law which went into effect in 1892,
Massachusetts established publicity in respect to nominating as well
as election expenses. The Garfield Corrupt Practices Act passed by
the Ohio legislature of 1896,[99] and unfortunately repealed in 1902,
required publicity and limited the expenditure of candidates before
conventions and primaries as well as before elections. In 1906,
Pennsylvania passed a law[100] containing a list of the legitimate
forms of campaign expenditure and requiring statements from
candidates for nomination in the primary as well as from candidates
for election. Nebraska, Virginia, and Georgia, have also passed laws
of this character.[101] In sharp contrast with these movements for
better things within our states are the deplorable conditions currently
alleged to exist in the greatest of all our nominating institutions,—the
National Conventions. It would seem hardly possible to delay much
longer reform measures designed to bring about improved conditions
in this field.
Considering the many unsettled points with regard to the proper
measures for regulating campaign contributions and the necessity
for the extension of such reforms to many areas as yet untouched it
is evident that we are dealing with a movement which has scarcely
made more than a beginning. Even with satisfactory legislation on
our statute books the fight will not be completely won. Fortunately it
is believed that the argument of unconstitutionality cannot be
employed against this movement.[102] Difficulties of administration
will have to be met, however, although it is highly improbable that
these will be so great as the difficulties occasioned by the execution
of other parts of our corrupt practices acts, such for example as the
manifold conditions which prevent the complete enforcement of laws
against the bribery of voters. Bi-partisan state election boards may
take over all ordinary official duties in connection with laws requiring
the publicity of, or otherwise limiting, campaign contributions. In this
work they may be somewhat aided by the mutual criticism of the
parties themselves, although, unfortunately, this is a party function
which is very imperfectly performed in the United States. Much good
may be accomplished by such voluntary organisations as the New
York Association to Prevent Corrupt Practices at Elections. With men
of prominence in both of the leading parties in its directorate and
membership the Association proposes:
“First, To ascertain whether any judicial proceedings should be
brought by the Association’s initiative; that is to say, whether there is
apparent evidence of bribery, or of deliberate falsification,
concealment, and evasion in the statements [of campaign
contributions and expenditures] such as would warrant a judicial
inquiry to compel a proper accounting.”
 “Second, To secure a permanent record for the Association of the
important facts in connection with the statements filed, upon which an
opinion may be based as to whether additional corrupt practices
legislation ought to be recommended by the Association to the
Legislature.”
The Association further intends to exercise the closest scrutiny
over such items as “canvassers,” “watchers,” “expenditures for
workers,” and so on. Particularly praiseworthy in its platform is the
determination to prosecute violations before the courts. Unless some
determined agency undertakes this function all campaign fund
enactments will promptly sink to the level of those already too
numerous American laws which adorn our statute books with ideal
maxims but in practice are ignored by our administrators.[103]
Assuming both legislative and administrative activity in campaign
fund reform still we must not overestimate the value of the probable
results. Only a part of the problem of the support of party machinery
and party workers will be solved thereby, but at least it may be said
that an important contribution toward the ultimate complete solution
of the problem will be made. Bribery and corruption will not be done
away with by the reform. They are, as we have seen, much too
persistent and extended to yield to any single reform effort. Indeed
some forms of bribery may be encouraged by the new practice with
regard to campaign contributions. Although it may be made
impossible to place men under obligations while they are candidates
it will still be possible to buy them, if they are purchasable, after they
have been elected. One should remember, however, that if primaries
and elections can be purged of corrupt financial influences it is
probable that our successful candidates for office will be less open to
venal influence than those who win out under the present vicious
system. Thoroughgoing campaign fund reform will enable candidates
to attain office without assuming financial burdens of such a
character as to make it difficult for them to act in a perfectly honest
and independent manner. By far the worst evil of the present system
is the ease with which it enables men otherwise incorruptible to be
placed tactfully, subtly, and—as time goes on—always more
completely under obligations incompatible with public duty. Finally
campaign fund reform will enable parties to become what democratic
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