“That’s a short and ugly word, Senator.”
“Wymett’s a short and ugly animile. Short on payment of his obligations, and ugly in a fight because you never know who he’s sold to last. Though, at that”—and here the considering pause came in the middle of the statement—“you can be pretty sure that Montrose Clark will have the deciding word.”
“Is that the President of the Public Utilities Corporation?”
“That’s the man. Know him?”
“I’ve reported him at meetings, twice. He did n’t say anything much.”
“He never does, in public or for the public. What did you think of him?”
“I thought he was a pompous little stuffed shirt,” was the reporter’s irreverent opinion.
“He’s pompous enough. But there’s brains behind those piggy eyes of his. We were talking of politics. Well, Montrose Clark is politics. He’s politics, big.”
“I would have thought he was finance, and bluff.”
“Finance, of course. That is politics. Let me give you a one-minute synopsis of the politics of this State. I told you the Legislature was a sieve. Well, the men that feed and shake the sieve are the financial and public utility interests; Montrose Clark representing the traction crowd, Magnus Laurens representing the water-power grabbers, Robert Wanser representing the banks, Sam Corliess representing the lake shipping, Selden Dana representing the railroads, and so on. And our newspapers are mostly just their little yellow dogs, useful to help put over their deals and to fool the people. What we need, and we need it right here in the capital, is a newspaper that will tell the people, not fool them.”