The Gilded Age

by Mark Twain

"Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can't expect immortal purity all the time—it ain't in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think we can feel very well satisfied. Even in these days, when people growl so much and the newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable minority of honest men in Congress." "Why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any good, Colonel." "Oh, yes it can, too" "Why, how?" "Oh, in many ways, many ways." "But what are the ways?" "Well—I don't know—it is a question that requires time; a body can't answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am satisfied of that."