All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren [75]
“Well, there’s going to be somebody in the pen,” old Mr. Patton said, “before it’s over. What’s going on up there in the city. All these–”
”George,” his wife breathe at him, but it didn’t do any good, for Mr. Patton was a bluff, burly type, with lots of money and a manly candor. He kept right on: “–yes, sir, all these wild goings-on. Why, that fellow is giving this state away. Free this and free that and free other. Every wool-hat jackass thinking the world is free. Who’s going to pay? That’s what I want to know? What does he say to that, Jack?”
“I never asked him,” I said.
“Well, you ask him,” Mr. Patton said. “And ask him, too, how much grabbing there is. All that money flowing, and don’t tell me there’s not a grab. And ask him what he’s going to do when they impeach him? Tell him there’s a constitution in this state, or was before he blew it to hell. Tell him that.”
“I’ll tell him,” I said, and laughed, and then laughed again when I thought how Willie would look if I did tell him.
“George,” the Judge said, “you’re an old fogy. Government is committed these days to give services we never heard of when we were growing up. The world’s changing.”
“It’s changed so much a fellow can step in and grab the whole state. Give him another few years and nothing can blast him out. He’ll have half the state on a pay roll and the other half will be afraid to vote. Strong-arm, blackmail, God knows what.”
“He’s a hard man,” the Judge said. “He’s played it hard and close. But there’s one principle he’s grasped: you don’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. And precedents. He’s broken plenty of eggs and he may make his omelettes. And remember, the Supreme Court has backed him up on every issue raised to date.”
“Yeah, and it’s his court. Since he got Armstrong on, and Talbott. And the issues raised. But what about the issues that haven’t been raised? That people have been afraid to raise?
“There’s a great deal of talk,” the Judge said calmly, “but we don’t really know much.”
“I know he’s going to tax this state to death,” Mr. Patton said, and shifted his big arms, and glared. “And drive business out of this state. Raising royalty on the state coal land. On the oil land. On–”
“Yes, George,” the Judge laughed, “and he slammed an income tax on you and me, too.”
“On the oil situation, now,” the Young Executive, for the sacred name of oil had been mentioned, “as I see it, the situation–”
Well, Miss Dumonde had certainly opened the corral gate when she mentioned politics, and it was thunder of hoofs and swirl of dust from then on, and I was sitting on the bare ground in the middle of it. For a while it didn’t occur to me that there was anything peculiar about the scene. Then it did occur to me. After all, I did work for the fellow who had the tail and the cloven hoof and this was, or had started out to be, a social occasion. I suddenly remembered that fact and decided that the developments were peculiar. Then I realized that they weren’t so peculiar, after all. Mr. Patton, and the Young Executive, and Mrs. Patton, for she had begun putting her oar in, and even the Judge, they all assumed that even tough I did work for Willie my heart was with them. I was just picking up a little, or maybe a lot, of change with Willie, but my heart was in Burden’s Landing and they had no secrets from me and they knew they couldn’t hurt my feelings. Maybe they were right. Maybe my heart was in Burden’s Landing. Maybe they couldn’t hurt my feelings. But I just broke in, after an hour of sitting quiet and drinking in Miss Dumonde’s subtle scent, and said something. I don’t recall what I interrupted, but it all amounted to the same thing anyway. I said, “Doesn’t it all boil down to this? If the government of this state for quite a long time back had been doing anything for the folks in it, would Stark have been able to get out there with his bare hands and bust the boys? And would he be having to make so many short cuts to get something done to make up for the time lost all these years in not getting something done? I