Absurdity

Anderson presents the legislative branch of the government as an absurd place, where a bill about a dam can only pass if it has money for battleships and tariffs against circus animals. It is shown to be a place where politicians agree about the social good of a proposal like McMurtry's call for nurses and birth control, but then vote to appropriate money for making the navy dock its ships in a port where one of the congressmen owns real estate and speakeasies. The problem that Alan McClean encounters is that he enters this situation thinking that it will bow to the rules of logic. He makes the common sense suggestion that wasteful spending should be stopped because the taxpayers cannot afford extravagant spending, particularly not in the middle of an economic crisis like the Depression. He even fails to see the sense of supporting the people who...