"What is that you say, Mrs. Lee? What is it about
corruption?"
All the gentlemen began to listen and gather about them.
"I am asking Senator Ratcliffe," said she, "what is to become of us
if corruption is allowed to go unchecked."
"And may I venture to ask permission to hear Mr. Ratcliffe's
reply?" asked the baron.
"My reply," said Ratcliffe, "is that no representative government
can long be much better or much worse than the society it
represents. Purify society and you purify the government. But try
to purify the government artificially and you only aggravate
failure."
"A very statesmanlike reply," said Baron Jacobi, with a formal
bow, but his tone had a shade of mockery. Carrington, who had
listened with a darkening face, suddenly turned to the baron and
asked him what conclusion he drew from the reply.
"Ah!" exclaimed the baron, with his wickedest leer, "what for is
my conclusion good? You Americans believe yourselves to be
excepted from the operation of general laws. You care not for
experience. I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the
midst of corruption. I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to
proclaim it, and you others have it not. Rome, Paris, Vienna,
Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure!
Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no
society which has had elements of corruption like the United
States. The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to
cheat me.
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