Early Lobbyist Edward R. Phelps had no idea that he was in the crosshairs of a Nellie Bly exposé when she visited his office in 1888. While lobbying for change for the greater good was baked into our constitution, players like Phelps and his wealthy clients corrupted the process and abused the privilege.
Nellie Bly went undercover as she did in many of her most famous pieces including “Ten Days In A Madhouse” in 1887. Smelling another front-page story for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, she posed as the wife of a man whose health product was in jeopardy if an upcoming bill passed.
Gilded Age Headlines Read Like Today’s
Bly’s article would hold up in today’s headlines, with lobbyists manipulating outcomes in categories including pharmaceuticals, self-driving cars, flying taxis, media monopolies, drilling in protected land and too many more. The early lobbyists of Bly’s day started the playbook and got the ball rolling.
Lobbying Was A Good Idea That Swindlers Abused
Lobbyists existed unofficially in America from its earliest days. The First Amendment promises that citizens’ voices will be heard via the right to petition the government.
According to EarthDay.org:
“At the time it was not about professional lobbyists but a simple promise that citizens could bring their concerns directly to their leaders.” (EarthDay)
Congress routinely considered bills from citizen petitions.
“An early example occurred in 1792 when Virginia veterans of the Continental Army hired William Hull to lobby the newly formed Congress to increase their compensation.” (EarthDay)
On the plus side, professional lobbyists can give voice to the people. But the profession also became an industry that wooed clients with the most resources. During the Gilded Age, early lobbyists including Edward Phelps courted legislators with every tactic from fancy dinners to outright bribery.
As far as Nellie Bly was concerned, if left unchecked, these early lobbyists would help wealthy players and corporations seize control of the government.
The Rich Grew Richer During The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age spanned the late 1870s to the early 1900s. Society glittered on its thin top surface, but was corrupt beneath. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined the phrase in their famous satirical novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Published in 1873, it was set in post-Civil War America.
It was a time of Rapid industrialization that triggered “economic growth, and prosperity for the wealthy. It was also a time of exploitation and extreme poverty for the working class.” (Investopedia)
At the top were famed captains of industry including Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Leland Stanford and Cornelius Vanderbilt. They amassed fortunes by creating monopolies in steel, petroleum and transportation, often with the aid of early lobbyists to whom they paid top dollar.
Bucking against these ultra-wealthy interests, Political Cartoonists flourished. A child of the Gilded Age, Art Young was one of the greats.
Investigative “muckrakers” emerged. Yellow Journalism from publishers including Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World newspaper created an appetite for articles that were critical of political corruption, fraudulent business leaders, unfair labor practices and racial inequality.
And of course, star reporters like Nellie Bly emerged. No doubt, she would have been a top performer in today’s social media platforms.
Edward R. Phelps Caught In A Neatly Laid Trap
Nellie Bly’s expose on early lobbyist Edward Phelps appeared on the front page of the New York World newspaper on April 1, 1888. Although her real name was Elizabeth Cochrane, she received a front-page by-line under her nom de plume. That was considered by some, including her rival Elizabeth Bisland, to be inappropriate for a lady.
Regardless, Bly was at the top of her career as a trendsetter and early influencer in the world of journalism. The King of the Lobby was the latest in her journalistic conquests for publisher Joseph Pulitzer.
It was one of her signature first-person articles in which she went undercover. This time, her mission was to expose a well-known professional Edward Phelps, an early lobbyist, who bribed legislators to affect bills. The bill Bly pretended to oppose was intended to halt Victorian Quackery which brought waves of fake products to the public with little or no oversight.
“I was a lobbyist last week. I went up to Albany to catch a professional briber in the act. I did so. The briber, lobbyist and boodler whom I caught was Mr. Ed Phelps. He calls himself “King of the Lobby.”
Bly took the train from New York City to Albany where she met Phelps at the Kenmore Hotel on Pearl Street.
“I thought my surest bait for this occasion was assumed innocence and a natural ignorance–not entirely assumed–as to how such matters are conducted.
“Mr. Phelps, I came to consult you on a matter of importance,” I began nervously, as if afraid of my position. “I–I hope no one can overhear us?” and I looked at him imploringly.
“Oh no; you are safe to speak here,” he assured me, with a pleasant smile.
He drew his chair closer to me and adjusted his glasses carefully on his nose, meanwhile looking at me critically.
“I have come to see you about a bill,” I began to explain. His face lighted up as a girl’s will over strawberry soda on an August day. He smiled encouragingly, and rubbed his hands together gently.
“What bill is it,” he asked eagerly.
“A bill about patent medicines,” I answered. “My husband is ill, and he sent me to New York from Philadelphia to place some advertisements, and a friend, who also has a patent medicine, told me of this bill, so I came up to see if anything could be done.”
“Have you the bill with you,” he asked in a low tone.
“Yes; my friend gave it to me when he told me about it,” I replied. He got up and walked over to the door, as if to be positive it was tightly closed. Then he came back, and taking the bill, which I held in my hand, he quickly scanned it.
“Do you think you can kill it?” I asked, with a proper amount of enthusiasm.
“Oh,yes,”he responded heartily. “Never fear, I’ll have it killed.”
Phelps assured Bly that he could buy more than half the members of the Assembly. It was only a question of money. When she pretended to doubt his ability to do this, he showed her a list of members and marked those he swore he could buy.
“In his scoundrelly anxiety to prove his strength and to get my money he besmirched the character of many good assemblymen.”
How The Lobby King Contracts To Kill Bills For Cash
Phelps ultimately tells Bly that the bill — which would more closely regulate patent medicines could be killed for $1,000, plus his fee of $250, by bribing members of a committee. (In 1890 dollars.)
Still undercover, Bly persuades one of America’s early lobbyists to reveal his secrets.
“”My husband could not understand how you could buy the whole committee for $1,000. It seems so little,” I suggested.
“I couldn’t if that was my only case, but you see this is my business; I spend all my time at it; I pay these men heavily on other bills, so that makes some bills more moderate.”
“I have control of the House, and can pass or kill any bill that so pleases me,” was Mr. Phelps’ astounding reply.
“Next week,” he continued, “I am going to pass some bills, and I’ll get $10,000; I often get that and more to pass or kill a bill.”
I was stricken dumb. I did not what to say.The brazen affrontery of this appalled me.”
In her classic Nellie Bly style, she managed to talk her way out of his office without paying with a promise that she would return in a half hour. Instead, she returned to for the New York World office.
“So far as I personally know, Mr. Phelps is still waiting my arrival in the parlor of the St. James Hotel.”
Read King of The Lobby by Nellie Bly here.
A Petite Journalist Downed A Lobby King – Temporarily
The early lobbyist accused Bly of writing fake news. He asserted that he knew all along that she was playing him. He said her expose was nothing more than “efforts to concoct a sensational romance such as you seem to suppose that your readers relish…”
But this article, like Ten Days In A Madhouse, ended up before a state assembly committee with Bly giving testimony.
Although Ed Phelps denied that he engaged in any agreement to buy off legislators, the committee did not believe him.
“The committee, therefore, do not hesitate to say that there is no evidence whatever even tending to impeach the character of any legislator named in the World article.”
A Small Dose of Irony
Nellie Bly became the face of several products including “Schenck’s Mandrake Pills, which promised to resolve a wide range of liver issues.
Nellie Bly Articles Increased Readership
Nellie Bly started her work at Pulitzer’s New York World by getting herself committed to the infamous Blackwell’s Island Asylum to write an exposé on the treatment of the mentally ill. Her resulting series of articles, Ten Days In A Madhouse, prompted a grand jury investigation with Bly assisting. She won lasting fame and Pulitzer won a huge spike in readership.
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