It cannot be expected that a lawyer making from $25,000 to
$50,000 a year, or a man engaged in business, whose annual
income perhaps far exceeds that amount, will leave it for
$5,000 a year. In that way he is compelled not only to live
frugally himself, but what is more disagreeable still, to
subject his household to the live in the humblest style in
a costly and fashionable city, into which wealthy persons
are coming from all parts of the country.
The members of Congress have a great many demands upon them,
which they cannot resist. So a Senator or Representative
with $5,000 a year, living in Washington a part of the year
and at home the other part, cannot maintain his family as
well as an ordinary mechanic or salaried man who gets $2,500
or $3,000 a year, and spends all his time in one place.
The English aristocracy understand this pretty well. They
give no salary at all to the members of their House of Commons.
The result is that the poor people, the working people and
people in ordinary life, cannot get persons to represent them,
from their own class. That will soon be true in this country,
if we do not make a change.
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