The Gilded Age

by Mark Twain

And doesn't it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all its impure members there may not be enough members left to do business legally?" "Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody." "Well won't it expel anybody?" "Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That would not be regular." "Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?" "It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it." "Then the country is a fool, I think." "Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled." "Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?" "By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. But all that inquiry is not lost. It has a good moral effect." "Who does it have a good moral effect on?" "Well—I don't know. On foreign countries, I think. We have always been under the gaze of foreign countries. There is no country in the world, sir, that pursues corruption as inveterately as we do. There is no country in the world whose representatives try each other as much as ours do, or stick to it as long on a stretch. I think there is something great in being a model for the whole civilized world, Washington." "You don't mean a model; you mean an example." "Well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. It shows that a man can't be corrupt in this country without sweating for it, I can tell you that." "Hang it, Colonel, you just said we never ...