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Title: Mr. Crewe's Career, Book II.

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 16, 2004 [EBook #3682]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. CREWE'S CAREER, BOOK II. ***

Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger

MR. CREWE'S CAREER

By Winston Churchill

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XI

THE HOPPER

It is certainly not the function of a romance to relate, with the
exactness of a House journal, the proceedings of a Legislature. Somebody
has likened the state-house to pioneer Kentucky, a dark and bloody ground
over which the battles of selfish interests ebbed and flowed,--no place
for an innocent and unselfish bystander like Mr. Crewe, who desired only
to make of his State an Utopia; whose measures were for the public good
--not his own. But if any politician were fatuous enough to believe that
Humphrey Crewe was a man to introduce bills and calmly await their fate;
a man who, like Senator Sanderson, only came down to the capital when he
was notified by telegram, that politician was entirely mistaken.

No sooner had his bills been assigned to the careful and just
consideration of the committees in charge of the Honourable Brush Bascom,
Mr. Botcher, and others than Mr. Crewe desired of each a day for a
hearing. Every member of the five hundred was provided with a copy; nay,
nearly every member was personally appealed to, to appear and speak for
the measures. Foresters, road builders, and agriculturists (expenses
paid) were sent for from other States; Mr. Ball and others came down from
Leith, and gentlemen who for a generation had written letters to the
newspapers turned up from other localities. In two cases the largest
committee rooms proved too small for the gathering which was the result
of Mr. Crewe's energy, and the legislative hall had to be lighted. The
State Tribune gave column reports of the hearings, and little editorial
pushes besides. And yet, when all was over, when it had been proved
beyond a doubt that, if the State would consent to spend a little money,
she would take the foremost rank among her