It wasn't
that the people wanted me to put over any particular idea or ideal for
them. I simply so intrigued them with flights of oratory that they
decided I was a natural born congressman! Well, bless 'em for doing
it, anyhow, and I'll play the game for them. If I ever had had a
father I'd like to talk politics with him. He must have had some
decency in him, or I'd have been all bad, like my mother. Or maybe I'm
a throw-back from two degenerate parents. Well, we'll end the breed
with me.
"Lucy, it would have been romantic if I could have cleaned out Minetta
Lane and other New York rookeries. But it would have been about like
satisfying one's self with washing a boy's face when his body was a
mass of running sores. We've got to cure the sores and in order to do
that we've got to find the cause. No one thing is going to prove a
panacea. I wonder if it's possible to teach children so thoroughly
that each one owes a certain amount of altruistic, clean service to his
local and his federal government that an honest, responsible citizenry
would result?"
Enoch drank of the ice water and continued to turn the close-written
pages.
"April 12.--I don't boast much about my career as a Congressman. I've
been straight and I've gabbed a good deal.
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