Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/119

 *ernor was driven from his office amid the hoots and jeers and the hissing of a venomous hatred such as nothing but political rancor knows, unless it be religious rancor. Yes, politics had got pretty low in those days, and its utter meanness, gradually revealed, was enough to cause one to despair of his country and his kind. Perhaps the old Egyptian in the legislature and the idealist in the governor's chair should have been enough to keep one from despairing altogether, though one honest old peasant cannot save a legislature any more than one swallow can make a summer. I do not mean to say that he was the only honest man in the legislature: there were many others, of course, but partizan politics prevented their honesty from being of much avail; or, at any rate, they did not control events. With the measurable advance in thought since that time, and the general progress of the species, we know now that men do not control events half so much as events control men; we do not know exactly what it is that does control men—that is, those of us who are not Socialists do not know.

Altgeld, at any rate, was disgusted with politics, as well he might have been, since they wrecked his fortune and broke his heart. And it was with relief, I know, that he said that morning,—almost the last he passed in the governor's chair,—as he and I were going up the long walk to the State House steps:

"Well, we're rid of this, anyway."