Comments on: Making the Senate populist http://stevereads.com/weblog/2004/04/14/making-the-senate-populist/ Books and policy from an endlessly curious perspective Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:29:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1-beta By: Cosma http://stevereads.com/weblog/2004/04/14/making-the-senate-populist/comment-page-1/#comment-4491 Cosma Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/politics_and_policy/making_the_senate_populist.html#comment-4491 <p>Stephen --- the reason the Constitution was amended so that the Senate is directly elected is that when they were selected by state legislatures, trusts and robber barons would routinely bribe the legislators to get senators who knew which side their bread was buttered on. Look up the phrase "the Senator from Standard Oil". If you think the present government is corrupt and generally held in low esteem, go read Twain's The Gilded Age.</p> Stephen — the reason the Constitution was amended so that the Senate is directly elected is that when they were selected by state legislatures, trusts and robber barons would routinely bribe the legislators to get senators who knew which side their bread was buttered on. Look up the phrase “the Senator from Standard Oil”. If you think the present government is corrupt and generally held in low esteem, go read Twain’s The Gilded Age.

]]> By: Steve Laniel http://stevereads.com/weblog/2004/04/14/making-the-senate-populist/comment-page-1/#comment-4492 Steve Laniel Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/politics_and_policy/making_the_senate_populist.html#comment-4492 <p>Well-put, Cosma. The argument that senators were in industry's back pocket should have occurred to me.</p> <p>For anyone who's interested, Twain's <span class="book">Gilded Age</span> is <a href="http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=3178">available through Project Gutenberg</a>.</p> Well-put, Cosma. The argument that senators were in industry’s back pocket should have occurred to me.

For anyone who’s interested, Twain’s Gilded Age is available through Project Gutenberg.

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