Adele Ferguson

How sad,” writes a reader, “that Congress has become a battlefield of hatred and derision in the constant quest for power. Same goes for the legislature.”

I recall when there was a camaraderie in the legislature. Democrats went to dinner with Republicans. Insults were unheard of. How do we get that old camaraderie back?

It depends on the people you send to Olympia and Washington, D.C. Back in those good old days lawmakers got something like $3,000 a year and shared offices and secretaries so you got candidates who truly wanted to serve the public.

Now that they have the salary up to $42,106, we’re getting more people in it for the money. But I too miss the good old days and the good people who served.

I fondly remember twice during one session of the legislature just when tempers were at the breaking point in the House and all seemed on the verge of blowing sky high, two men accomplished the near impossible and by a few words completely reversed the charged atmosphere.

One was Rep. Bob Curtis, R-Chelan, who was drafted one midnight to give the prayer because they were being gaveled back into a new session and there was no minister present. Angry words were being exchanged and the members were tired and frustrated. “Lord,” said Curtis, “it’s been a long day...” and went on from there. In a simple and moving prayer calling upon all present to join in trying to do a good job for all the people, Curtis in moments calmed the nervous, jumpy members of both parties and the tension was gone.

Not long after that, the situation was almost the same. Exhausted House members were about to do verbal battle on the budget when Rep. Robert Goldsworthy, R-Rosalia, rose to explain that budget. No point in giving any figures, he said, they all knew what was in it.

“We tried and no single person here is going to like everything that’s in it,” he said. “It’s kind of like the man who spent $500 to cure his halitosis and found out nobody liked him anyway.”

They laughed.

“The budget has been watered here and there too,” said Goldsworthy, but they could probably see where. “In Rosalia, when you see a trout in the milk, you know it’s been watered.”

The Republicans, he said, “with our big, broad, honest, bovine faces, sat down across the conference table and looked into the narrow, shifty, little, red ferret eyes of the opposition—that’s you” he waved at the Democrats.

They proceeded from there and tried to satisfy everybody, he said, and felt they mainly did.

“It’s like the man who had five dimes in his nose and he went to the doctor to get them out and the doctor said why in heaven’s name didn’t you come to me before this? And the man said I didn’t need the money until now.”

He told more stories and wound up reading a poem by Browning. In two completely different ways, two men were able to dissolve all differences in a body made up of 99 of the most temperamental people in the state. By the power of their words, they welded that 99 into one, into a House of Representatives of the people trying to do the best they could to represent those people.

God bless the good old days.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)