Data is big business these days. And data journalism is becoming an increasingly useful tool, not only for investigative pieces, but can also be used to help illustrate just about any issue.
But it’s not a new invention.
In fact, Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune used data in the mid-180os to track on how members of Congress were taking advantage of some outdated mileage reimbursement rules to seriously cash in.
ProPublica has dug into the archives and had an interesting revelation: Abraham Lincoln, or “Honest Abe,” was one of the major offenders of collecting excess mileage during his one term in the U.S. House.
The law provided for a 40-cent per-mile reimbursement computed off the distance “by the usually traveled route.” However, that reimbursement rate was set up to match a pre-1816 congressman’s daily pay rate of $8, assuming they would only be able to travel a grueling 20 miles per day.
By the mid 1800s, trains greatly increased the distance that could be traveled each day.
Greeley, who at this point was not only the paper’s editor but also a freshman on Capitol Hill, didn’t argue with the 40-cent per-mile reimbursement, but rather, argued the reimbursements should be based off the shortest path.
“We assume that each has charged precisely what the law allows him and thereupon we press home the question — ‘Ought not THAT LAW to be amended?’” Greeley wrote.
He asked one of his reporters, Douglas Howard, a former postal clerk, to use a U.S. Post Office book of mail routes to calculate the shortest path from each congressman’s district to the Capitol, and compared those distances with each congressman’s mileage reimbursements.
The paper then started running a list of comparing what the elected officials actually billed for compared to what they should have received based on his shortest path theory.
Among the accused stood Abraham Lincoln, in his only term as congressman. Lincoln’s travel from faraway Springfield, Illinois, made him the recipient of some $677 in excess mileage — more than $18,700 today — among the House’s worst.
But “Honest Abe” had good company. Isaac Morse, a Democrat from Louisiana, received reimbursement for 2,600 miles for a journey that would have taken 1,200 miles by postal route.
“Only 409 miles less than to London,” one of the newspaper articles stated.
