“Welcome to the new Gilded Age, Mr. Twain!”
Those are the words I wanted to shout last Saturday night at Cupertino’s Flint Center while watching actor Hal Holbrook brilliantly bring Mark Twain to life in his one-man show.
When it comes to curmudgeonly 19th-century humorist authors who – between birth in 1835 and death in 1910 – piloted a Mississippi riverboat, went out West in search of gold, found journalism fame, wrote America’s best-loved novel about a boy named Huck and a runaway slave named Jim, and made countless acerbic observations people still find hilariously clever, Mark Twain ranks at the top of my list. And when it comes to defining Twain on stage, no one can beat Hal Holbrook.
Saturday night, Holbrook was in prime form as Twain giving a rant about that corrupted cadre of conniving crooks called Congress. In Twain’s Midwestern drawl, Holbrook told the audience: “Suppose you’re an idiot. Now suppose you’re a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
He went on: “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” And, “Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.”
Somehow on Saturday night, I got the impression Twain didn’t care for Congress. In fact, the famed author’s first novel, published in 1873, was about the corruption of congressional office holders. Written in collaboration with his friend Charles Dudley Warner, “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” focuses on central characters Colonel Beriah Sellers of Tennessee and Senator Abner Dilworthy who scheme to make themselves vast sums of money in a government railroad bribery. The title christened a period of American history famous for its breakdown of ethics in the flagrant pursuit of vast wealth and power.
Twain’s Gilded Age satire of greed and graft in government could be a tale of our today, too. The novel was inspired by a real political scandal that rivals today’s Enron. In 1864, major Union Pacific Railroad stockholders formed a company called “the Credit Mobilier of America” to construct the eastern portion of the transcontinental railroad. They illegally gave congressmen stock shares in the company in exchange for approving $47 million in federal subsidies. Corrupted by the money, the congressmen turned a blind eye to vastly inflated expenses. The railroad builders made a tidy profit of $21 million, and the congressmen also got rich as their stock increased in value.
But the truth always comes out – especially in an election year. During the presidential campaign of 1872, the New York Sun newspaper revealed how the tarnished congressmen took bribes from big business. Among the 13 representatives implicated was Speaker of the House James Blaine, a Republican from Maine. The next year, Twain and Warner’s novel skewered the whole Credit Mobilier debacle.
You don’t have to read Mark Twain’s political satire to see how quickly congressmen will sell their ethics. Just read today’s newspapers. We now live in our own Gilded Age, and here are a few key characters in the story:
Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) sits in jail, convicted of bribery.
Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) is under investigation for possible criminal activity involving underaged boys.
Former Rep Robert Ney (R-OH) pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for corruption charges for financial incentives in exchange for official actions.
Former Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX) is under criminal indictment in the state of Texas for violating that state’s campaign finance laws.
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is under criminal investigation for bribery after the FBI raided his freezer and found $90,000 in – literally – cold cash.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), ironically the former ranking member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, is under FBI investigation for possibly “earmarking” federal funds to nonprofit groups he founded to benefit his real estate interests.
The list goes on. And after Election Day, expect to see more congressmen indicted – especially those with corrupt connections to notorious Washington insider Jack Abramoff. The rat lobbyist is now chatting with FBI agents about how he enticed his congressional buddies to provide political favors in exchange for campaign contributions. Expect at least two current California congressmen to be caught in the law’s jaws.
With pervading sleaze now infesting our nation’s center of power, it’s no wonder a recent poll shows only 16 percent of Americans approve of Congress’ performance. We definitely now live in a new Gilded Age.
Here in the South Valley, people have grown tired of the rottenness of our representatives. “They’re all crooks,” folks tell me. “They’re all on the take.” That generalization, however, is not true. There are good people in Congress – both Democrats and Republicans. It’s just that the good politicians don’t get much media coverage when the juicy scandals the bad politicians get themselves ensnared in hit the headlines.
This general public cynicism is a dangerous thing. It leads to apathy – a sense of indifference when people feel powerless to clean up corruption. And apathy leads to a breakdown of the democratic process we Americans cherish.
So what can we in the South Valley do about this problem? I’ll let the great man Mark Twain gives us his solution. “In this country we have one great privilege,” he once said. “When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable, the people can rise up and throw it off. That’s the finest asset we’ve got – the ballot box.”
The second bit of advice Twain might tell us is to simply think for ourselves and not be swayed by rhetoric of so-called “patriotism” when we enter that ballot box. “No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote,” he said. “If loyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot. If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn’t.”
That’s golden wisdom from one Gilded Age to another.
