mself--phew!

The thing came like a wave. Everybody felt it at once. People wondered
how any sane, intelligent community could tolerate the presence of a
set of corrupt scoundrels like the twenty aldermen of the city. Their
names, it was said, were simply a byword throughout the United States
for rank criminal corruption. This was said so widely that everybody
started hunting through the daily papers to try to find out who in
blazes were aldermen, anyhow. Twenty names are hard to remember, and as
a matter of fact, at the moment when this wave of feeling struck the
city, nobody knew or cared who were aldermen, anyway.

To tell the truth, the aldermen had been much the same persons for
about fifteen or twenty years. Some were in the produce business,
others were butchers, two were grocers, and all of them wore blue
checkered waistcoats and red ties and got up at seven in the morning to
attend the vegetable and other markets. Nobody had ever really thought
about them--that is to say, nobody on Plutoria Avenue. Sometimes one
saw a picture in the paper and wondered for a moment who the person
was; but on looking more closely and noticing what was written under
it, one said, "Oh, I see, an alderman," and turned to something else.

"Whose funeral is that?" a man would sometimes ask on Plutoria Avenue.
"Oh just one of the city aldermen," a passerby would answer hurriedly.
"Oh I see, I beg your pardon, I thought it might be somebody important."

At which both laughed.

* * * * *

It was not just clear how and where this movement of indignation had
started. People said that it was part of a new wave of public morality
that was sweeping over the entire United States. Certainly it was being
remarked in almost every section of the country. Chicago newspapers
were attributing its origin to the new vigour and the fresh ideals of
the middle west. In Boston it was said to be due to a revival of the
grand old New England spirit. In Philadelphia they called it the spirit
of William Penn. In the south it was said to be the reassertion of
southern chivalry making itself felt against the greed and selfishness
of the north, while in the north they recognized it at once as a
protest against the sluggishness and ignorance of the south. In the
west they spoke of it as a revolt against the spirit of the east and in
the east they called it a reaction against the lawlessness of the west.
But everywhere they hailed it as a