n6 State Legislation 



on any conceivable subject, he herewith returned 

 them their kind communication.* 



In concluding I would say, that while there is so 

 much evil at Albany, and so much reason for our 

 exerting ourselves to bring about a better state of 

 things, yet there is no cause for being disheartened 

 or for thinking that it is hopeless to expect improve- 

 ment. On the contrary, the standard of legislative 

 morals is certainly higher than it was fifteen years 

 ago or twenty-five years ago. In the future it 

 may either improve or retrograde, by fits and starts, 

 for it will keep pace exactly with the awakening of 

 the popular mind to the necessity of having honest 

 and intelligent representatives in the. State Legis- 

 lature.f 



I have had opportunity of knowing something 

 about the workings of but a few of our other State 

 Legislatures : from what I have seen and heard, I 

 should say that we stand about on a par with those 



* A few years later a member of the Italian Legation 

 "scored" heavily on one of our least pleasant national pecul- 

 iarities. An Italian had just been lynched in Colorado, and 

 an Italian paper in New York bitterly denounced the Italian 

 Minister for his supposed apathy in the matter. The member 

 of the Legation in question answered that the accusations 

 were most unjust, for the Minister had worked zealously un- 

 til he found that the deceased "had taken out his naturaliza- 

 tion papers, and was entitled to all the privileges of American 

 citizenship." 



f At present, twelve years later, I should say that there 

 was rather less personal corruption in the Legislature ; but also 

 less independence and greater subservience to the machine, 

 which is even less responsive to honest and enlightened public 

 opinion. 



