Things clear to you are not clear when
you have to meet men in the committees and on the floor of the house who
have a contrary view from yours and hold to it just as tenaciously as
you do to your views."
Well, sir, he gave me quite a new impression of what a Congressman's job
was like, of what difficulties and dissensions he had to meet at home,
and what compromises he had to accept when he reached Washington.
"Do you know," I said to him, with some enthusiasm, "I am more than ever
convinced that farming is good enough for me."
He threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and then moved up still
closer.
"The trouble with you, Mr. Grayson," he said, "is that you are looking
for a giant intellect to represent you at Washington."
"Yes," I said, "I'm afraid I am."
"Well," he returned, "they don't happen along every day. I'd like to see
the House of Representatives full of Washingtons and Jeffersons and
Websters and Roosevelts. But there's a Lincoln only once in a century."
He paused and then added with a sort of wry smile:
"And any quantity of Caldwells!"
That took me! I liked him for it. It was so explanatory. The armour of
political artifice, the symbols of political power, had now all dropped
away from him, and we sat there together, two plain and friendly human
beings, arriving through stress and struggle at a common understanding.
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