Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/345

 man after man arose to accuse him, he, with the papers they wanted in his pocket, answered with reason and with tact. And his self-possession soon possessed the House. "It is wonderful!" a woman spectator exclaimed. "Whenever that man speaks, you can feel a sense of quiet settle upon the whole House." Little known in the state and known to the politicians as "the dreamer, U'Ren's debate that night made him a reputation. The recollection of everybody present was vivid ten years afterward, when I inquired, but when I mentioned it to U'Ren, he smiled; he never fools himself.

"It is easy to make a reputation as a parliamentarian," he said, "when you have the chairman on your side."

He won out; that is what he recalls. He beat permanent organization that Monday night, and thus put off the senatorial vote for two weeks. And then followed, not two weeks, but a session, of bribery, drunkenness, hate, and deadlock. Men were bought, sold, and bought back again. Both sides used money fiercely; and since there was no appropriation bill, the members got from the state no salary, no mileage, nothing; they had to have money. Well, they got it. Bourne set up a private house, somewhat like the "House of Mirth" at Albany, N. Y., where he "