96 State Legislation 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE 



THERE is a much brighter side to the picture, and 

 this is the larger side, too. It would be impossible 

 to get together a body of more earnest, upright, and 

 disinterested men than the band of legislators, 

 largely young men, who during the past three years 

 have averted so much evil and accomplished so 

 much good at Albany. They were able, at least 

 partially, to put into actual practice the theories 

 that had long been taught by the intellectual leaders 

 of the country. And the life of a legislator who is 

 earnest in his efforts faithfully to perform his duty 

 as a public servant, is harassing and laborious to 

 the last degree. He is kept at work from eight to 

 fourteen hours a day; he is obliged to incur the 

 bitterest hostility of a body of men as powerful 

 as they are unscrupulous, who are always on the 

 watch to find out, or to make out anything in his 

 private or his public life which can be used against 

 him; and he has on his side either a but partially 

 roused public opinion, or else a public opinion roused, 

 it is true, but only blindly conscious of the evil from 

 which it suffers, and alike ignorant and unwilling 

 to avail itself of the proper remedy. 



This body of legislators, who, at any rate, worked 

 honestly for what they thought right, were, as a 

 whole, quite unselfish, and were not treated par- 

 ticularly well by their constituents. Most of them 

 soon got to realize the fact that if they wished to 

 enjoy their brief space of political life (and most 

 though not all of them did enjoy it) they would 



