"Not So Bad"

Going home for Christmas, jaded Congressmen had time and opportunity to read about themselves in the language of one of themselves. Red-headed (but amiable) Representative Loring M. Black Jr. of Brooklyn, N. Y., in an article entitled "Congress Isn't So Bad" in Plain Talk for January wrote as follows: ". . . The question before the house is: Has Congress become a governmental vermiform appendix? "In the House of Representatives' membership of 435 there is not enough hair on the involved faces to stuff a pin cushion. . . . "The more lenient critics believe we are unacquainted with contemporary poetry. Well, has there been any poetry lately? . . . "Belasco could recruit a troupe from our groups--Borah, the hero; Jim Reed, the villain; and Blanton, the mob scene! . . . "The press gallery often catches and transmits the noisy nothings at the discomfiture of the aggregate wisdom. Those journals, sniffing for human interest effluvia, prefer parliamentary riots and such outbreaks as the Battle of Blanton and Bloom to the interpretation of drab statistics assembled by the drudges of Congressional Committees engaged in formulating legislation of significance. "Ten thousand dollars unviolated looks handsome. The Congressional tengrands get badly nicked. The most appalling item is the slice torn off for campaign expenses. Then come the tickets for balls and kindred entertainments. . . . Congressmen are considered easy marks and their names grace many a list of angels, honored by the company of America's leading philanthropists. The cost of tickets for card parties, bazaars, etc., pockmark the old stipend. A politician has to be charitable and charity tugs not at the heart, but the purse. ". . . Our extravagances are expressed before the galleries. No sightseers observe the Cabinet in argument, excitement or perplexity. You cannot tune in on the White House static. Before a Presidential Proclamation, the controversial clashes have been hushed in the sanctity of the Cabinet Chambers. The Ancient Order of Sphinxes or a Convention of Lynnhaven Oysters is no more efficiently safeguarded from eager ears than the Cabinet. . . . "The worst that can be honestly said of Congress, is that it exhibits the human equation performing under a spotlight. The best that can be said is, that the United States is in pretty good shape after years of Congressional guidance. Probably the Congress has had something to do with this. Probably the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans should get the credit. . . ."