Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

Among members of Congress, the intricate business of trading favors is commonly referred to as the “courtesy” system, or, more quaintly, the “buddy” system. Among its critics—a category that extends to include anyone who has not yet benefited from it—it is called log-rolling, back-scratching, or, most often, the pork barrel. (The phrase “pork barrel” derives from a fondness on the part of some southern plantation owners for rolling out a big barrel of salted pork for their half-starved slaves on special occasions. The near riots that ensued as the slaves tried to make off with the choicest morsels of pork were, apparently, a source of substantial amusement in the genteel old South. Sometime in the 1870s or 1880s, a wag decided that the habitual efforts by members of Congress to carry large loads from the federal treasury back to their home districts resembled the feeding frenzies of the slaves. The usage was quite common by the late 1880s; and in 1890 it showed up in a headline in the New York Times, assuring its immortality.) Members of Congress who believe in the system—there are many who fervently do, and probably an equal number who dislike it but go along—argue that it benefits the nation as a whole by distributing public-works money to all the fifty states in more or less equal proportion. It doesn’t. Anyway, to say the Congress cannot function without the “courtesy” system is to say that it cannot conduct its business without indulging in bribery, extortion, and pro...