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A look at the Pan-Electric Telephone Scandal, which almost cost Alexander Graham Bell his patent, and some other interesting things about how Washington worked in the 1880’s. Using a book of Frank G. Carpenter (the Ohio journalist who we read from in the Midterms episode), we take a look at what lobbying was like in 1880’s. There was good and bad, Carpenter feels. He also describes a ‘Conscience Fund’ that the U.S. Treasury has where people who stole from the government can give money back. No questions apparently are asked and the fund has been in existence for 200 years — Carpenter references it in his 1880’s article, and we find a 2017 Podcast discussing it.