Contemplating such a body as the House of Representatives one sees only a group of men who have compromised with honor. They have been broken to the goose-step. They have kept silent about good causes, and spoken in causes they know to be evil. The higher they rise, the further they fall. The occasional mavericks, thrown in by miracle, last a season and then disappear. The old Congressman, the veteran of genuine influence and power, is either one who is so stupid that the ideas of the mob are his own ideas, or one so far gone in charlatanry that he is unconscious of his shame. (Notes on Democracy, 1926)