The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
know that the truckling, craven disgusting majority was wiped out
as a boy rubs a wet sponge across a slate.
The Hon. Bardwell Slote is a large man at home and a giant to his
wife. In his first term he comes to Washington a month ahead of
the date set for the assembling of Congress, because he wants the
Capital to get used to him gradually. He hires a couple of rooms
in a hotel. His wife puts some flowers on the mantel piece in the
sitting-room and wears her best dress all the time while she is
waiting for the president's consort and the cabinet ladies to
call. They do not call. The Hon. Slote is shocked almost to
dumbness to discover that the Capital does not know that he is on
earth. Beyond a two-line "personal" in the morning paper, jammed
among the "hotel arrivals," no mention is made of his coming. He
has bills in his trunk providing for a public building at
Bungtown and a deep water harbor at Squashville and a light house
on Jim Ned creek and the establishment of a federal court at Eden
and a governmental survey of the bad lands around Dogtown, and
the Bungtown Bazoo and the Squashville Cresset and the Eden Echoe
and the Dogtown Democrat have all stated that he intended to make
speeches on every one of them, but the general public does not
seem to take much interest in these foreshadowed cataclysmal
events. Posing on the sidewalk in front of his hotel, with his
legs wide apart, his hands behind him and his breast well out, a
couple of small boys passing remark that he is "de new jay f'on
Injyanny," and that is all the notice he gets. The attitude was
very effective at home, but it does not seem to excite awe in the
District of Columbia.
Once in his seat on the floor of the House he discovers that he
is merely a unit in the majority or the minority. Nobody asks his
advice about anything. The tally clerk calls his name in a
careless manner. He cannot catch the speaker's eye. He bobs up
half a dozen times in the first hour with intent to make a motion
about something and sinks back limply. The voice, face and manner
that were wont to still the conventions at home are no good. The
newspaper men in the gallery over the speaker's head point at him
and whisper to each other and then they laugh. It makes him
uncomfortable. The next day the clipping bureau sends him thirty
or forty paragraphs like this:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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