The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill.”
“and they'll all be convinced that, even if our Buzzy maybe has got a few faults, he's on the side of the plain people, and against all the tight old political machines, and they'll rouse the country for him as the Great Liberator (and meanwhile Big Business will just wink and sit tight!)"
He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator,[...] in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, [...] and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars.
He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical
wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother,
beseech like an “aching lover, and in
between tricks would coldly and
almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and
facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were
entirely incorrect.
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