Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/174

 long line of southern ancestors. And yet Tom Johnson was a Democrat, from conviction and principle. In fact it seems almost as though the cause of democracy would never have got on at all if now and then it had not had aristocrats to lead it, as ever it has had, from the times of the Gracchi to those of the Mirabeaus and the Lafayettes and the Jeffersons.

Tom Johnson made an instant impression when he went into politics, and he went in on the explicit advice of Henry George. When he arose in the House of Representatives at Washington to make his first speech, no one paid the least attention. It is, I suppose, the most difficult place in the world to speak, not so much because of the audience, but because of the arrangement; that scattered expanse of desks is not conducive to dramatic effect, or to any focusing of interest. The British Parliament is the only one in the world that is seated properly; there the old form of the lists is maintained, opponents meet literally face to face across that narrow chamber. But when Johnson arose at Washington, there were those scattered desks, and the members—lolling at their desks, writing letters, reading newspapers, clapping their hands for pages, gossiping, sauntering about, arising and going out, giving no heed whatever. But Tom Johnson had not spoken many words before Tom Reed, then the leader on the Republican side, suddenly looked up, listened, put his hand behind his ear, and leaning forward intently said: "Sh!" and thus brought his followers to attention before the new and strong per