--as a
joke first, then as an impertinence.

Right here I desire to say to my readers and especially to all those
hypocritical and ignorant people who, imagining any strong statement
must express a strong prejudice and not a fact, will cry, "He
overstates! He exaggerates!" that in years after when I had full
opportunity to study at close range the Massachusetts Legislature, its
workings and those who worked it, all the impressions I had received at
this time were absolutely confirmed. I do not hesitate to state, then,
that:

_The Massachusetts Legislature is bought and sold as are sausages and
fish at the markets and wharves. That the largest, wealthiest, and most
prominent corporations in New England, whose affairs are conducted by
our most representative citizens, habitually corrupt the Massachusetts
Legislature, and the man of wealth connected with such corporations who
would enter protest against the iniquity would be looked on as a "class
anarchist." I will go further and state that if in New England a man of
the type of Folk, of Missouri, can be found who, after giving over six
months to turning up the legislative and Boston municipal sod of the
past ten years, does not expose to the world a condition of rottenness
more rotten than was ever before exhibited in any community in the
civilized world, it will be because he has been suffocated by the stench
of what he exhumes._

To return to my story, after my investigations I again saw Whitney and
Towle, and they, not relishing my remarks on the subject of bribery,
told me frankly to attend to my own part of the affair and leave their
part to them. At this stage I called in Addicks, our corporation
counsel, and some of the largest holders of Bay State bonds and stock,
and put before them the bargain I had arranged with Whitney. They all
agreed it was an excellent combination, and ratified the terms I had
proposed to Whitney. It was further agreed that Whitney should make over
to us one-half ownership in the new company, which we were to transfer
to the Bay State Company after the charter had been granted.

There was every reason at this stage in the deal to regard victory as
assured, for it did look as though the flapping sails on our
much-buffeted and battered craft were at last to be filled with a lusty
breeze strong enough to carry us to the harbor we had so long been
trying to make. Besides what we ourselves could do and had already done,
we now had Whitney f