"
"But you can't give them passes under the interstate law," protested the
purist.
"Not outside of the State, of course. But inside of the State boundaries
it's our own business."
"You mean it _was_ our own business, previous to the passage of the
State rate law two years ago," corrected Blount.
"It is our own business to this good day--in effect. That part of the
law has been a complete dead-letter from the day the governor signed it.
Why, bless your innocent heart, Evan, the very men who argued the
loudest and voted the most spitefully for it came to me for their return
tickets home at the end of the session. Of course, we kept the letter of
the law. It says that no 'free passes' shall be given. We didn't issue
passes; we merely gave them tickets out of the case and charged them up
to 'expense.'"
"Faugh!" said Blount, "you make me sick! Gantry, it's that same childish
whipping of the devil around the stump by the corporations--an expedient
that wouldn't deceive the most ignorant voter that ever cast a
ballot--it's that very thing that has stirred the whole nation up to
this unreasonable fight against corporate capital. Don't you see it?"
Gantry shrugged his shoulders.
"I guess I take the line of the least resistance--like the majority of
them," was the colorless reply. "When it comes down to practical
politics--"
"Don't say 'practical politics' to me, Dick!" rasped the reformer.
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