Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/87



Jersey City appealed to me. I wanted to help them, and I couldn’t; at least, I didn’t.”

“Why?” he said, repeating my question thoughtfully. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “I don’t know that I can tell you, exactly. I will try to explain, if you will understand that I’m not apologizing for myself. There was no more excuse for what I did in this matter than there was for other things I did and—didn’t do. The bill was bad; it was crudely drawn.”

“Record admits that,” I interjected. “Record says that at that time he had never heard of the main stem, and had no right understanding of the situation at all.”

“Nor had I,” said Colby. “But that doesn’t let me out. It served me as an excuse at the time. The big leaders, seeing my bent toward the bill, told me it was badly drawn, and I grasped at this reason as at a straw. But why shouldn’t I, the House Leader, have amended that bill ? The need of the legislation was plain. Why didn’t I fix the bill? I couldn’t. You understand? I, a law maker, hadn’t the ability to draw a good bill. Why, then, didn’t I have some other, older legislator make the bad bill good? There wasn’t a man in that House who could have drawn a sound tax bill to meet the most notorious need of the state. We were incompetent. Perhaps;