everything that affects it. I cannot imagine a public man with a
conscience having a secret that he would keep from the people about their
own affairs.

I know how some of these gentlemen reason. They say that the influences to
which they are yielding are perfectly legitimate influences, but that if
they were disclosed they would not be understood. Well, I am very sorry,
but nothing is legitimate that cannot be understood. If you cannot explain
it properly, then there is something about it that cannot _be_ explained
at all. I know from the circumstances of the case, not what is happening,
but that something private is happening, and that every time one of these
bills gets into committee, something private stops it, and it never comes
out again unless forced out by the agitation of the press or the courage
and revolt of brave men in the legislature. I have known brave men of that
sort. I could name some splendid examples of men who, as representatives
of the people, demanded to be told by the chairman of the committee why
the bill was not reported, and who, when they could not find out from him,
investigated and found out for themselves and brought the bill out by
threatening to tell the reason on the floor of the House.

Those are private processes. Those are processes which stand between the
people and the things that are promised them, and I say that until you
drive all of those things into the open, you are not connected with your
government; you are not represented; you are not participants in your
government. Such a scheme of government by private understanding deprives
you of representation, deprives the people of representative institutions.
It has got to be put into the heads of legislators that public business is
public business. I hold the opinion that there can be no confidences as
against the people with respect to their government, and that it is the
duty of every public officer to explain to his fellow-citizens whenever he