See who gave.(on the right)(political fund raising)

NEW YORK, JANUARY 8

IF you are in search of details on financial traffic moving about, paying for all the political ads we come across, plus high living for the traffic cops, go to your computer and try searching for "Federal Election Commission" on the Internet.

Pause. If you do not have a computer or ready access to one, just accustom yourself to a widening world of privation, as if, every day, one fewer light bulb in your universe came on.

A subheading in the FCC's listing takes you to "Presidential Campaign Finance Map." Here we get a reading on campaign-finance traffic as of last fall. All this year's presidential candidates taken together had received $372 million from individuals. The size of the donations bears thought. The two most substantial groups of givers are those who gave $200 or less, and those who gave $1,000 or more. From the modest givers, $76 million; from the high rollers, $260 million; with an even $100 million coming from all the categories in between.

From which parts of the country did the money flow? There are no great surprises. One finds the biggest balloon in California, one nearly as big in New York State, and somewhat smaller but still sizable ones in Greater Washington, D.C., Texas, Florida, and Illinois.

And now for the recipients.

Democrats had taken in $241 million. Republicans, $175 million. These are close enough to warrant rapid reading: A dollar for the party that sponsors the things I've been getting, a dollar and 37 cents for the party that promises me more than I am now getting. Albert Jay Nock put it crassly 75 years ago when he said that politics is a means of accumulating money without manual labor. Of course, there are a hundred other uses of government than merely to act as the agent for redistribution, but for such purposes as we have in mind, Nock's adage is useful.