To find something, anything...
...a great truth, or a lost pair of glasses...
...you must first believe there will be some advantage in finding it.
I found something a long time ago...
...and have held on to it for grim death ever since.
I owe my success in life to it.
It put me where I am today.
This principle:
What you don't know won't hurt you.
They called it idealism in a book I read.
Get the gun. Get the gun. Get the gun.
Oh, my God.
The judge won't scare easy.
I don't count on him scaring easy.
You think it's beneath my dignity?
Well, you're governor, they tell me.
Yeah, I'm governor.
The trouble with governors is they think they gotta keep their dignity.
There's nothing worth doing a man can do to keep his dignity.
Human frame ain't built that way.
When I'm not governor anymore because I'm president...
...I wanna meet somebody at midnight, I'll do that then too.
Hope you leave me to get a night's sleep.
No, Jack, you going with me because that's what you want.
Yeah, you and Sugar with me in the White House.
I'll give Sugar a pistol range right out there in the garden.
Brace of Republican senators can set up his tin cans for him.
And I'm gonna appoint a special member to Cabinet for you:
Secretary to the Bedchamber of Mr. Jack Burden.
Somebody to keep them telephone numbers straight...
...and return their little pink silk articles that get left behind.
But we gotta do this first.
In the middle of the night when we could just do it in town sometime.
Sometime ain't never now.
Bastard.
Which way up there?
Jack, tell Sugar how to get to the house.
It's your people live down here.
Suppose he don't open up?
Make him. What I pay you for?
Hey, Jack.
Mr. Duffy.
This is Willie Stark from up Mason City.
- County treasurer. - Glad to meet you.
- Jack Burden. - From The Chronicle.
Good to meet you, Mr. Burden.
Yeah, Willie's on business for Mason City.
Bond issue them got up there.
Gonna build a schoolhouse.
Yeah. Me and Willie was in school together.
Oh, you was in school, Alex. I didn't know.
Not the teacher's favorite, I don't expect.
No, sir, that's true.
Willie was, though. Still is, ain't you, Willie?
Yeah, Willie married a schoolteacher.
Well, you know...
...they tell me that schoolteachers are made with it...
...in the same place as the rest.
Now, is that right or not, Mr. Stark?
Yeah, that's right.
Slade!
Beers all around.
Not for me, thanks.
Oh, that little schoolteacher don't like it when you drink?
Well, she don't favor it, for a fact.
Well, beers all around.
Well, I sell beer to those who want it.
I don't make nobody drink them.
Well, maybe you got some orange pop for him.
That's what he wants.
Yeah, I think I'd like some orange pop. Two straws.
Jack, get up Mason City.
See who's this fella who thinks he's Jesus Christ...
...come down off the cross to scourge the moneychangers...
...out of that shinplaster courthouse they got them there.
I know who he is. Fella with a Christmas tie...
...pushed a school bond through.
- You know him? - Met him.
Watched him drink a bottle of orange pop once...
...through two straws on account of a wife who don't favor drinking.
She favor him staying parish treasurer?
Don't you know how things are run up there?
Run up there like they're run down here.
Yeah? Well, you leave down here and run on up there.
As a commissioner, as chairman, I guess you're in a position...
...to know the situation regarding the schoolhouse contract.
Ain't no situation.
Maybe not, but maybe so.
Ain't any situation.
Board took a bid offer.
A.J. Moore's bid, the fella's name...
...schoolhouse gets built.
This Moore fella's bid, I take it, was the lowest?
Now, you lookie here.
Ain't nobody tells a board what bid to take.
Anybody can come along put in a little pissant bid.
Board doesn't have to take it.
Board takes somebody who can do the work right.
Ain't nothing done but legal.
Who was it put in the little pissant bid?
- Name of Jeffers, if I recollect. - Jeffers Construction?
- Yeah. - Well, that's a real firm, a big firm.
The board picks who can do the work right.
That's all I got to say.
Don't you wanna tell mama...
...you wanna see yourself shining in the table? No?
All right. I wish I could have sold some to you.
Be out of your way in a second here. And no brushes, you sure?
- I'm sure. - All right.
Thank you. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.
Mr. Stark.
Why, Mr. Jack Burden, how are you, sir?
You know, people would think parish treasurer paid well enough...
...a man wouldn't have to sell household fix-it kits door-to-door.
- People would think. - Doesn't in Mason City.
Well, I'm maybe not so good at mathematics...
...as some other parish treasurers you may've met.
Or too good at it.
How much they steal on the schoolhouse contract?
Well, let's see...
Jeffers come in $142,000.
Moore, $175,000.
That's $33,000 split six ways, 5500 per commissioner.
They done it so plain and pretty, well, you'd almost have to admire them.
Just point out Jeffers uses nigra laborers...
...skilled men, you know?
Next thing, it's, "Lookie here, nigras making more money than you men.
Pushing wheelbarrows, hauling dirt."
And that's it. "Goodbye, Mr. Jeffers and your low bid.
You go build your nigra schoolhouse somewhere else."
Not that you didn't try and get people to see what was going on.
Oh, I yelled so long and loud about these old boys lining they pockets...
...I'm lucky to have any job in Mason City:
Government, door-to-door, or any other variety.
I stood out there on that street corner...
...pencil in one hand, paper in the other...
...trying to show people the numbers.
But you stop people out there in that hot sun...
...try to show them arithmetic...
...well, they can't see it so clear...
...through the sweat pouring in they own eyes from they own hard labor.
Especially if you put nigras in the equation.
- Why, you're likely to get beat up. - Likely?
Once or twice.
You gonna run again in November?
No, I'm done. A lame duck. Lucy too. They got her fired from teaching.
And I don't care. I don't want to teach there just so they can steal money.
That's right. You're looking at your own private two-person leper colony.
Sipping pop.
So, what are you gonna do, then?
I don't know. String my pa a fence, slop some pigs, milk some cows.
I'm gonna keep the faith, Mr. Burden, that's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna keep the faith in the people, because you know why?
Time...
...brings all things to light.
I trust it's so.
Joe.
Did you get a photograph of him?
Who?
The next mayor of this town.
You know what people are saying?
People are saying that God himself had a hand...
...in this schoolhouse business.
That God stepped in on Willie Stark's side.
Yes, sir. He does work in mysterious ways sometimes.
Sometimes...
...he has somebody else do it.
Sends over a fat man in a striped suit with a big car to do his will.
Well, I have had some worse employers, I admit that.
What you want?
Well, I wanna work for you, Mr. Stark.
And you wanna work for the people, unless I been misinformed.
People vote me, I'd be privileged to serve them.
- What, as the county treasurer? - Yes, sir.
Mr. Stark, you could run for mayor of Mason City...
...and you could win without climbing out of bed in the morning.
You just put the word out...
...about Willie Stark, who tried to take on the crooks single-handed...
...Willie Stark, who tried to warn us...
...Willie Stark, who could have saved our kids if we'd have just listened.
Now, I'm not talking about Willie Stark for the mayor of Mason City. No, sir.
I'm talking about Willie Stark...
...as the next governor of the great state of Louisiana.
Now, you saw a man holding out a handful of cash to you...
...and you said no.
This is what I see.
I see a man in a booth...
...looking down at a ballot, a working man.
And he sees three names there: Harrison, MacMurphy and Stark.
Now, what this man really sees...
...is that picture in the newspaper of them three little coffins...
...and the one man since the great Governor Stanton died...
...that had the guts to buck the powers that killed them.
Now, that man, that voting man, he's got a pencil...
...he checks a box, you wake up governor.
And that little lady lying beside you...
...the one that don't favor liquor...
...she wakes up the governor's wife.
That's what I see.
Now, why don't you take a minute with your orange pop...
...see if you can't see it too...
...governor.
You got your speech?
All right.
Willie Stark!
Thank you, folks.
Thank you kindly.
My name's Willie Stark from Mason City yonder...
...and I'm pleased to have a chance to talk with you all here today.
Now, friends...
...what I wanna talk about is something that's been troubling me.
- Coffee, please. - Yes, ma'am.
Can I sit with you?
Or anything else.
No, thanks.
- You don't like my looks? - I don't care about anybody's looks...
...but I can't recall ever going for anyone...
...who reminds me of a box of spilled spaghetti.
Miss Burke, I'm sitting here having a cup of coffee.
I'm almost through, then you couldn't sit with me...
...which is what you asked for. - Sorry.
Not working for Sen-Sen Puckett anymore.
- Now, he wasn't a bad-looking fellow. - Heel.
Well, sure, politically and elsewise.
Who didn't know that?
I guess I'm slower on some things than others.
- Like you. - Am I?
- I think so. - I think not.
Not on this charade.
That's the topic of the interview.
Then tell me, if you're so smart.
All right. Harrison's a city man, MacMurphy's a cracker.
Not a cracker precisely, but enough of one to worry Harrison...
...that crackers won't know the difference.
So Harrison looks for someone to split the cracker vote.
Hears about an honest man up in Crackerville...
...where some cracker kids go down with a fire escape...
...that was supposed to be stuck with more than spit to their schoolhouse.
Sends his man Tiny Duffy up there to romance him...
...and then Sadie Burke to romance him some more.
Both telling him how good he is...
...how he has better than a chance in hell to change things in this state...
...where nothing will ever change.
Because you and Tiny and the rest of them...
...don't care how much of a fool you make a man.
And you do care, I suppose?
I didn't say that. I don't care.
If I did, I'd do something about it, wouldn't I?
No, I'd rather watch from here.
Like passing a car crash.
I know you all can't see this from all the way back there...
...but I've got a pie chart representing it.
And you can see here where public welfare and hospitals end up.
They should be the same.
Rather, the ratio...
We should go.
Not yet.
Let's go in again.
You don't wanna swim?
How you think we doing?
Fine, I guess.
You think?
That how you reporting it?
Sure.
Seems to me they listen less and less the further I get from home.
Well, that makes sense, don't you think?
Maybe...
...you trying to say too much.
I'm telling them what they need to know:
Taxes, wages, highways.
Well, maybe it's how you're telling them.
Maybe if you told them the way you tell Lucy or Tiny or me...
...or anyone face to face, they'd listen better.
I don't know how that is.
Hard to know how you sound to somebody else.
Mad, fed up, like you mean business is how you sound.
But not on the platform. You climb three steps...
...you sound like the rest of them. Like a man who wants to win an election.
Willie...
Yeah?
What?
Nothing.
Well, a man don't have to be governor.
I don't deny wanting it.
I won't lie to you, I lie awake wanting it.
But sometimes a man can want something so bad...
...be so full of want...
...he plain forget what it is he want.
I could have been a good governor.
A lot better than them other fellas.
But I ain't gonna be governor.
Hi.
Come on in. Why not?
Oh, Mr. Stark.
Sadie.
What's up?
Willie here was just telling me how he's not gonna be governor.
You told him?
No, I didn't, as a matter of fact, no.
Told me what?
Oh, yeah, well, that makes sense.
I see.
So that's true? I'm being used.
So they tell me.
I saw it in his eyes the first time he come to see me, Tiny.
But I just pushed it out of my head.
Pushed it clean out.
I should've known better.
Mr. Stark?
You thought you were the little white lamb of God, didn't you?
Just waiting for the chance to stand on your hind legs and make a speech.
They would have paid you to play the part. They pay me.
But you were too stupid to see even that.
You did it for free.
You're just their dumb sacrificial sap and I'm...
I'm sorry I let them.
Your stomachaches, your colics, your bloats, your diarrhea.
You're looking a little peaked.
I can't imagine.
Slept like a baby.
Got your speech?
All right, then. Let's go. It's time.
"Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here."
What?
The song.
Yeah. That's what it is.
Hello. Hello.
How are you?
Here's that speech you was just asking about.
My name is Willie Stark from Mason City yonder.
I had a speech...
...about this state and what it needs.
There's no use in me telling you about it, you are the state.
You know what you need.
Look at the knees of your pants.
Look at your crops.
Look at your kids.
You got holes and rot...
...and ignorant offspring on account of this state.
Well, I had a speech, but I ain't got it no more.
Mr. Duffy got it now in his fat little hands.
Don't you, Tiny?
Go ahead, show the people. Hold it up.
Well, since he got it...
...I'm gonna have to say something else.
It's all right.
Because I got something else to say.
I got a story about a redneck hick.
He's like yourselves, if you please.
Well, this fella, a while back, this hick...
...started thinking about all the other hicks...
...what he could do for them.
Well, one day...
...it came down with the powerful force...
...of God's own hand...
...when the only brick schoolhouse ever built in his parish...
...collapsed on account of it was built with politics-rotted brick.
And it killed and mangled a batch of poor, young scholars.
Oh, you know this story.
You heard it.
He fought the politics that built that schoolhouse...
...with rotten brick and bolts.
But he lost.
He lost.
And it fell.
It fell.
Well, it wasn't long...
...before some public officials from the city...
...rode out in their big fine car...
...and told this hick how they wanted him to run for governor.
Them in them striped pants, they told me...
...MacMurphy was a limberback...
...Joe Harrison, he was just a tool of the city machine.
And they wanted this nobody, do-gooder hick...
...to step in, give them some honest government.
You know who they were?
In that big fine car?
They was Joe Harrison's own lickspittles...
...coming in to split MacMurphy's hick vote!
That's right! Your hick vote!
There he is!
There he is right there.
There's the Judas Iscariot lickspittle nose-wiper from the city, right there.
Come on, Tiny. Look at him. Joe Harrison's dummy.
Come on, take a bow. Come on. No, come on now, people wanna see you.
Take a bow, come on. There he goes.
No! No, let him lie! Let him lie!
Let that hog lie in his own filth!
Let him lie, but listen to me, you hicks.
That's right, I'm not the only one here. You hicks too.
They fooled you, too, just like they fooled me a thousand times.
But it's time I fooled somebody.
It's time I fooled them.
Them big-city, striped-pants lickspittle hick-haters.
I'm running for governor on my own.
I'm coming for them and I'm coming for blood!
First thing I'm gonna do is build me a road out...
...across the swamps and alligators and anything else that gets in my way.
A thousand miles of concrete, if that's what it takes...
...so I can come out here and visit with my fellow hicks on a regular basis.
Then I'm gonna build me a bridge across that mighty Mississippi.
Name it after myself because I'm the one who built it.
Then I'm gonna build you all new schools.
Send your kids home with free tablets and pencils and books...
...to study and learn on the way to the new university I'm gonna build...
...where every one of them can go.
Same as rich folks' kids.
Now, I hope you're listening, you hicks.
Because I don't wanna drive all the way back home...
...just to drive back out here next week to tell you again.
And this is it:
If you don't vote...
...you don't matter. You don't matter!
And then you're just as ignorant as them in the city say you are...
...while they stealing food off your table...
...and every nickel out your pocket, saying, "Thank you."
Because then you are just a bunch of ignorant hicks who got nothing...
...because you deserve nothing.
So listen to me.
Listen here.
Lift your eyes...
...and look on the God's blessed and unflyblown truth:
You are a hick and ain't nobody never helped a hick but a hick hisself.
It's up to you to nail these parasites up.
- Up to you and me and God. - Amen!
- Nail up Joe Harrison! - Nail him up!
- Nail up MacMurphy! - Nail him up!
And nail up any bastard that gets between you...
...and the roads and the bridges and schools...
...and the food you need.
You give me the hammer and I'll do it.
I'll nail their hides to the barn door.
- Nail them up! - Nail them up!
More about Stark?
He's colorful. Makes it easy.
You know me, always looking for easy.
Jack. You know what The Chronicle line is on the election.
Sure. MacMurphy again because of his brilliant record as an administrator...
...and high integrity as a statesman.
Why can't you put that in your column, a little less of Stark's raving madness?
Listen, Jack. I know Stark's a friend of yours but...
He's not a friend of mine. Personally, I don't care who's governor.
Are you telling me what to write, or am I mistaken?
- You know The Chronicle line. - All right.
What do you mean, "All right"?
I mean it the way I said it.
I, Willie Stark, do solemnly swear...
...that I will support the constitution and laws of the state of Louisiana.
Willie didn't need me to get himself elected.
He won by a landslide.
By the biggest margin in the history of the state.
- all the duties incumbent upon me as governor so help me God.
Which isn't to say everyone voted for him.
Jack, get up Mason City.
My editor didn't vote for him.
- thinks he's Jesus Christ come down off the cross...
The publisher of this paper didn't vote for him.
These men didn't vote for him.
Or these.
The governor's education bill does not pass.
Or the old boys in the Senate who were in the pockets of the oilmen.
My mother didn't vote for him.
This is my mother.
She doesn't vote.
Over there, on her dressing table...
...that's her with her first husband.
First of four, if I recollect.
And that's my godfather on the right, the best man.
He didn't vote for Willie either.
In fact...
...I think it's safe to say nobody from where I'm from voted for Willie Stark.
And why should they?
His promises to the poor...
...to build roads and bridges and schools...
...were a declaration of war on the rich.
They wanted him out.
You Jack Burden?
I've come at the behest of the boss.
Who?
The boss? The governor?
Governor, let me put it in simple words so you understand:
There's no money for all these things you wanna do for the poor.
Oh, there's money, senator.
You're wrong there. There's plenty of money.
Every kilowatt comes out of the river, every barrel of oil from the ground.
But that doesn't belong to you, sir.
That's right. Don't belong to you either or them. Belongs to the state.
How about the state don't tax just 5% to build my roads, we take it all?
These are some powerful companies you talking about taking money from.
- They ain't gonna stand for it. - They ain't the power.
The power's in the hands of the powerless...
...and those hands have handed it to me.
Realistically, they'll approve half the money, maybe.
And that's after we beat them up.
So we build them half a highway.
Mile of concrete, mile of dirt, mile of concrete, mile of dirt...
...all the way to Shreveport.
Now, how's anybody gonna drive on that?
People ain't gonna stand for that.
They like their roads finished.
That's right.
What's right?
Hey, Jack. Sadie, take Tiny out of here, explain it to him.
- He just said it and he don't get it. - Come on, Tiny.
- You want something to eat? - No, thank you.
- Well, sit down. - Hi, Sadie.
Hey.
I heard you got fired.
Oh, you heard wrong. I quit.
That's smart. When I get done with that outfit, they won't be able to pay you...
...nor the nigra who sweeps the floor.
- You want a job? - Working for whom?
- The state? - Hell, no.
Me.
You, me, Sadie, Tiny.
Tiny? I was surprised to hear Tiny was back.
Well, somebody gotta be lieutenant governor.
Yeah, sure.
I keep Tiny around...
...to remind me of something I never wanna forget.
And that is?
When they come around sweet-talking, don't listen.
Never again.
What would I be doing for you?
Sweet-talking.
All right, everybody.
What on earth is that?
- This is a ballista. - A what?
Jack will tell you all about it. Jack, come on. Tell them.
It's a pre-gunpowder weapon fired with the tension of animal sinew.
Oh, my God.
Jack?
Right. See the eagle on top of the clock?
One...
...two...
They say you're in politics, Mr. Burden?
It must be fascinating to be in politics.
It's not, I assure you.
Well, they say you're very influential.
It must be fascinating to be very influential.
I honestly wouldn't know.
Don't let him kid you, Miss DuMonde. My godson Jack is very influential.
Like when he was a newspaperman.
All right, then, yes, I'm influential.
Any pals in the pen anyone wants pardoned, I'll put in the word.
Well, there is gonna be somebody in the pen.
Before it's over, what's going on there?
All these wild goings-on.
Fella giving away the state. Free this, free that, free the other.
Every wool-hat jackass thinking the world is free.
Who's gonna pay? That's what I wanna know.
Who's he think's gonna pay?
Standard Oil and the utility companies, I imagine.
And anyone else that can afford to pay their share.
You and me, George. We'll pay.
Government's committed these days...
...giving services we never heard of back when.
And he's gonna tax this state to death. Drive business right out.
You don't think it boils down to this:
If the government, for quite a long time now...
...had done anything for the people...
...they wouldn't have got fed up and elected Mr. Stark.
Well, you ask him this next time you see him:
Ask him how much grabbing there is, all that money flowing.
Then you ask him what's he gonna do when they impeach him.
There's a constitution in this state...
...or was, before he blew it to hell.
- I'll be sure to ask him. - You do that.
Jack, Miss DuMonde plays the piano.
That's nice.
You weren't like yourself today, son, like you used to be.
Mother, if I'm ever like I used to be, do me a favor and shoot me.
Who was that at lunch anyway?
Mr. Peyton. You've known him all your life.
He builds electrical plants or some such.
The girl, Mother. Miss DuMonde.
That's Mr. Orton's sister's child and she will inherit his money.
Somebody ought to wait until she inherits it, then marry her...
...and drown her in her bathtub.
Oh, don't worry, I'd like to drown her but I won't.
Was Mr. Peyton saying those people you're with...
...are mixed up in some sort of graft?
Graft's what you call it when who's doing it...
...doesn't know which fork to use. - Well, whatever you call it.
- Because I worry to think that... - I don't know.
How would I, careful as I am not to know what anybody anywhere...
...is doing at any time?
Oh, Jack, make a note.
Find out where they got Senator Tucson's boy locked up.
- What's his name? - The boy? Hell, I don't remember.
Find out when's the trial, get a lawyer down there.
- Who? Evans? - Not Evans.
Find somebody with less oil in his hair...
...and don't look like he sing with a band.
Put one of your pals on it.
You have any idea who it was got cut?
I don't care if it was the sainted aunt of the Apostle Paul.
Well, I just happen to know.
Fella's son of a doctor, paper said.
They're pretty important around here, you know, a doctor in the country.
They think they're somebody.
And maybe it gets out you're trying to fix it to get the boy off.
Wouldn't do you any good.
- Now, it appears to me, maybe... - You don't know a goddamn thing.
Had you been listening...
...I told Jack to prime the lawyer through a pal.
Find somebody who don't need to see his name in lights.
That way, nobody knows who picked him wasn't me.
Might as well been the pope himself far as anybody knows.
All right.
I get you.
Yeah, just barely.
- Hey, there, Pop. - How you doing, son?
- How you making out? - Oh, I'm getting along.
Good to see you. You looking good.
- I brought the infantry here. - How are you?
- More prettier than ever. - Hey, Grandpa.
How you doing, buddy? How's the arm?
- He gonna be all-American. - I know he is. I know he is.
All right, governor, sir, here we go. One, two...
Bastard.
Give me a slug.
Pa don't favor drinking.
Used to be Lucy didn't favor it.
I don't know what she do or don't favor no more.
Not that it matters.
Yeah, I must have poured 10,000 gallons of swill in them troughs.
Still doing it. Pouring swill.
Some things never change.
Hey.
- What's up? - Judge Irwin.
Judge Irwin what?
- Spill it. - I'll spill it when I have my breath.
You're using it up explaining you don't have it.
You think it's funny? You won't when I tell you.
- You tell me later. - Byram rang up.
He said the afternoon papers have got the judge saying...
...the allegations warrant a full-on investigation.
Two-timing bastard.
That two-timing bastard.
Clear them out.
Tiny was figuring on having supper up here.
Clear them all out.
Which way up there?
Jack, tell Sugar how to get to the house.
It's your people live down here.
Suppose he don't open up?
Make him. What I pay you for?
- Yeah, who is it? - It's Jack.
Jack?
Well, I'll be.
Hey, come on in.
You're not in any trouble, are you?
No, Jack's not in any trouble.
Matter of fact, he doing all right, all things considered.
I trust you don't mind if Jack pours me a slug.
I didn't know his duties ran to those of manservant...
...but if I'm mistaken, I'm sorry. - Oh, hell.
Sometimes Jack pours me a drink, sometimes I pour him one.
Sometimes I pour myself one.
I could pour you one.
No, thank you.
This today's?
Yeah, I don't get much time to read the papers...
...rushing around the state doing the good work.
Well, perhaps, I can relieve your curiosity on one point.
Somewhere in there's my opinion on the severity...
...of the allegations against you, if that's of interest.
Somebody told me that.
But you know how rumor hath a thousand tongues.
And how them newspaper boys, they can exaggerate some.
It's no exaggeration.
Yeah, I see.
If you're clear on that and finished with your drink...
...I'd appreciate it if you'd just get out.
Hey, thank you, judge, I think I will have just one more spot.
So I see it there in the paper, and I hear you say it...
...but are you sure you took it to the Lord in prayer?
I settled it in my mind.
See, that's unsettling.
Because if I recollect right, I recollect that...
...when we had our conversation in town that time...
...you sort of felt like what MacMurphy and his boys were saying about me...
...was beneath contempt.
I made no commitment to you or to them, only to my conscience.
- I beg your pardon, your what? - I beg yours.
You been toiling around politics too long to use a word like conscience...
...so easily.
No, my change of conscience came when certain features of your...
...public services, shall we say, came to my attention.
Somebody dug something up for you? In the dirt?
Yeah, not just one thing and not very deep.
Well, dirt's a funny thing.
Ain't nothing but dirt on God's green earth except what's under the water.
And that's dirt too, come to think of it.
Dirt makes the grass green...
...let it breathe.
The diamond on my wife's finger ain't nothing but dirt got awful hot.
What are we, but dirt blowed off the hands of God almighty?
You and me and George Washington.
And Jack there.
Still doesn't alter the fact.
I'm not trying to alter anything, just illuminate it.
Yeah.
You saying MacMurphy and his bunch, yelling for my impeachment...
...they're responsible, law-abiding men?
Yeah, they're responsible all right, to Alta Power and oil companies...
...and the rest of them thieves.
I wouldn't know about that.
Only way to not know is to not wanna know.
I'm retired, Mr. Stark. A reporter asked my opinion and I gave it.
If you was retired, no reporter would wanna ask you anything.
What you say matters.
A lot more than you pretend it don't.
So I'm asking you...
...call off the dogs.
Asking is different than telling and that sounded like telling to me.
Didn't it to you, Jack?
You been a judge a long time.
Yes, I have.
How would it feel, do you think...
...to not be one no more?
No man has ever been able to intimidate me.
I said what I said and I see no reason to say or think anything different.
Despite your expositions on laws and men, sir.
Suit yourself.
You're right, Jack. He don't scare easy.
Judge, it's more in pain than wrath I go.
Let's go. It's past Sugar Boy's bedtime.
Your employer is calling you, Jack.
I wouldn't go around advertising this visit to anyone.
In case you change your mind.
Bastard.
Well, Jackie, you got a job cut out for you.
- MacMurphy. - No, the judge.
You bring down the lion...
...the rest of the jungle will quake in fear and they'll all fall into line.
- I won't find anything. - Oh, yes, you will.
A man is conceived in sin and born in corruption...
...and passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.
You'll find something.
And make it stick.
Apart from pleasing the boss, I could see little advantage...
...in finding anything beyond what was already known about Judge Irwin.
What was known was that he was kind to you...
...when your father left you and your mother without saying why.
What was known was that he taught you...
....the things your father should have:
How to be a gentleman.
How to firmly shake a hand.
How to safely load a shotgun and lead a duck if you wanted to hit it.
What was known...
...was that he was more of a father to you than your real father...
...who you didn't know at all.
Hold it, please.
Governor's penthouse.
How you doing digging something up on Judge Irwin?
Nothing.
Nothing. Found nothing or done nothing?
There was nothing to find. I could dig to China, wouldn't find anything.
- And I'm not framing him. - Framing?
Ain't nobody talking about framing.
That's never necessary.
The truth is always sufficient. You just find the truth.
It's a waste of time and money.
Jesus, doesn't anybody listen to what I say anymore?
You don't wanna do it, don't do it. Or are you just looking for a raise?
I'm gonna give you $100 raise whether you want it or not.
If I wanted more money, I'd make it.
You gonna tell me you work for me for love?
I don't know why I work for you, but it ain't for love or money.
Well, that's right, it's not.
And you don't know why.
But I do.
Why?
Boy, you work for me because I'm the way I am...
...and you the way you are...
...and that's just an arrangement founded in the natural order of things.
She sure could skate.
Right now...
...hidden away in chambers...
...not out here in the open like you and me...
...there's a legislature full of hyena-headed...
...belly-dragging sons of bitches...
...setting around trying to figure out how to impeach me.
Now, they say it's because I got crooks on the payroll.
I say, "Is that all?"
Of course I got them. I got a can of oil in the garage too...
...because there ain't a machine made by man...
...don't need a squirt of that from time to time just to keep running!
But my crooks...
...unlike theirs...
...are all atremble...
...to be too crooked.
They're itty-bitty compared to their crooks in there.
The Standard Oil and the power companies.
Besides, I got my eye on mine.
Ain't nobody watching over these crooks.
Ain't nobody got their eye on them...
...while they rob the resources of this state!
Who made that son of a bitch what he is? Who made him governor?
And he goes and two-times me? I'll kill him.
No, he's two-timing Lucy.
You need some other kind of arithmetic for what he's doing to you.
Lucy, she's a fool. She's...
- I don't know what. - His wife.
A hick with a college degree from some Baptist hole in the ground.
What was she like?
- I didn't know Lucy any further back... - The slut on skates.
I don't know, I was looking at her skates.
Sure you were.
- Was she pretty? - Look, just forget it.
How young was she?
- Who cares? - Look at me.
He'll be back. The world is full of sluts on skates.
Skates, grass skirts, geisha outfits.
Contortionists.
Every man a king Every man a king
For you can be a millionaire
But there's something Belonging to others
Well, there's enough For all people to share
When it's sunny June Or December too
In the wintertime or spring
Well, there'll be peace without end
Every neighbor a friend
With every man a king
The judge married money. Savannah money.
The daughter of an industrialist out there.
He's clean, Willie. He's washed in the blood.
- You call yourself a detective. - I'm most certainly not...
The son of a bitch is washed in whitewash!
- Wanting it isn't the same as being it. - I know!
- I can feel it. - That isn't the same either.
Where did you find this itty-bitty out?
Hall of Records. It's all there.
Marriage licenses, property deeds, public record.
The public record is for the public, not us. That's why it's called that.
You ain't gonna find nothing there!
Now, I told you to dig, not scuff your shoe a little bit.