_Englishman_. Ah! Your Congress. That has changed since the old
days--since La Follette.

_American_. The name is a shame and a warning to us. Our children are
taught to remember it so. The "little group of wilful men," the eleven
who came near to shipwrecking the country, were equally bad, perhaps,
but they are forgotten. La Follette stands for them and bears the curses
of his countrymen, which they all earned.

_Englishman_. Their ignominy served America; it roused the country to
clean its Augean stables.

_American_. The war purified with fire the legislative soul.

_Englishman_. Exactly. Men are human still, certainly, yet genuine
patriotism appears to be a _sine qua non_ now, where bombast answered in
the old day. Corruption is no longer accepted. Public men then were
surprisingly simple, surprisingly cheap and limited in their methods.
There were two rules for public and private life. It was thought
quixotic, I gather from studying the documents of the time, to expect
anything different. And how easily the change came!

_American_. The nation rose and demanded honesty, and honesty was there.
The enormous majority of decent people woke from a discontented apathy
and took charge. Men sprang into place naturally and served the nation.
The old log-rolling, brainless, greedy public officials were thrown
into the junk-heap. As if by magic the stress of the war wrung out the
rinsings and the scourings and left the fabric clean.

_Englishman_. The stress of the war affected more than internal