The Mood of the Statesmen

The Congress was in an ugly mood. Like the rest of the nation, it was galled by the war news. And it had rubbed salt into its own sores: its pension-for-Congress bill, which the country would not let it forget.

In the House so many Congressmen rushed alibis into print that the galleries wondered if anybody had been present when the bill was up. Uprose Illinois' blonde, blue-eyed Jessie Sumner, to pin the blame on Georgia's patient Robert Ramspeck, the bill's sponsor. Miss Sumner had not known that the bill provided pensions for...

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