Mr. Overend nodded. "It's a tyranny," he said.
"Worse than Russia," rejoined Mr. Newberry.
They had been sitting in a quiet corner of the club—it was on a Sunday evening—and had fallen into talking, first of all, of the present rottenness of the federal politics of the United States—not argumentatively or with any heat, but with the reflective sadness that steals over an elderly man when he sits in the leather armchair of a comfortable club smoking a good cigar and musing on the decadence of the present day. The rottenness of the federal government didn't anger them. It merely grieved them.
They could remember—both of them—how different everything was when they were young men just entering on life. When Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were young, men went into congress from pure patriotism; there was no such thing as graft or crookedness, as they both admitted, in those days; and as for the United States Senate—here their voices were almost hushed in awe—why, when they were young, the United States Senate—
But no, neither of them could find a phrase big enough for their meaning.
They merely repeated "as for the United States Senate—" and then shook their heads and took long drinks of whiskey and soda.
Then, naturally, speaking of the rottenness of the federal government had led them to talk of the rottenness of the state legislature. How different from the state legislatures that they remembered as young men! Not merely different in the matter of graft, but different, so Mr. Newberry said, in the calibre of the men. He recalled how he had been taken as a boy of twelve by his father to hear a debate. He would never forget it. Giants! he said, that was what they were. In fact, the thing was more like a Witenagemot than a legislature. He said he distinctly recalled a man, whose name he didn't recollect, speaking on a question he didn't just remember what, either for or against he just couldn't recall which; it thrilled him. He would never forget it. It stayed in his memory as if it were yesterday.
But as for the present legislature—here Mr. Dick Overend sadly nodded assent in advance to what he knew was coming—as for the present legislature—well—Mr. Newberry had had, he said, occasion to visit the state capital a week before in connection with a railway bill that he was trying to—that is, that he was anxious to—in short in connection with a railway bill, and when he looked about him at the men in the legislature—positively he felt ashamed; he could put it no other way than that—ashamed.
After which, from speaking of the crookedness of the state government Mr. Newberry and Mr. Dick Overend were led to talk of the crookedness of the city government! And they both agreed, as above, that things were worse than in Russia. What secretly irritated them both most was that they had lived and done business under this infernal corruption for thirty or forty years and hadn't noticed it. They had been too busy.