1835 Emancipator, & Jrnl. Public Morals (N.Y.) 10 Mar. 3/2 They task their brains to a fever to understand all the mysteries of combination, wire-pulling and machivelism.

1887 Sat. Rev. 14 May 705/2 Literary wire-pulling and bargaining with publishers.

1924 Amer. Mercury Sept. 65/2 Committee-room wire-pulling was more powerful in 1876 than oratory.

1942 C. Headlam Diary 5 Mar. in S. Ball Parl. & Politics in Age Churchill & Attlee (1999) viii. 302 The appointment of Emrys Evans surprises me for he has, in my opinion, no abilities of any kind except for wire-pulling.

1993 F. Wheen Lord Gnome's Lit. Compan. (1994) 52 The back-scratching and wire-pulling that necessarily accompanied any attempt to get your works favourably noticed in the 19th century.

1844 Milwaukie (Wisconsin Territory) Sentinel 8 June The result of the convention..is a signal triumph of the better part of the democratic party over the wire pulling demagogue leaders.

1852 U.S. Democratic Rev. July 34/2 France..had its oligarchy too—the unmixed oligarchy of the exchange and till, and of wire-pulling politicians.

1876 ‘E. Pinto’ Ye outside Fools! 36 Let your clients try their best against the wire-pulling usurers.

1917 G. R. B. Charnwood A. Lincoln viii. 270 Lincoln,..who, to gratify a few wire-pulling friends, had struck this hero [sc. Frémont] down.

1996 J. W. Dardess Ming Society vii. 200 Yin Chih's biography..excoriates him at length as a wire-pulling practitioner of dirty politics.