[[File:Mrsmithgoestowashington 1.jpg|thumb|right|Jimmy [[James Stewart ]] in the title role, as he is flooded with manipulated mail generated by an evil propaganda machine.]]'''Jefferson Smith''' (not to be confused with [[Oregon]] State Representative Jefferson Smith, D-47<sup>th</sup>47th) was the fictional hero in [[Frank Capra]]'s great 1939 film, "''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]]." '' He remains an iconic figure of civic duty and devotion to [[republicanism]] and American values. The movie makes a serious indictment of the ability of backstage manipulators to deceive their American people through large-scale systematic propaganda.
The plot makes Smith a replacement [[United States Senate|United States Senator]] who discovers, to his shame, that he had been appointed to be a stooge. When he decides not to be a stooge, the political machine responsible for his appointment makes an effort to destroy his reputation and have him expelled from the Senate, in order to protect a graft operation two years in the planning. But Smith's dogged perseverance, combined with the not-yet-seared conscience of his colleague and chief adversary in the Senate, enables him to prevail and evil , or at least to be defeatedhold out long enough for good to prevail over evil.
== Probable associations ==
=== State ===
The State where Jefferson Smith was born and raised is never named. The almost certain candidate is [[Colorado]]. Colorado is along the most direct flight line that a carrier [[pigeon]] might fly from [[Washington, DC]] through [[Kentucky]]. It lies along the [[Continental Divide]] and the [[Rocky Mountains]] and is well-known for its forests. The State involved must have had a mountainous region that included a creek and its valley that would be suitable for camping and have a rich population of wildlife.
Colorado is also mineral-rich. This is important because a key part of Jefferson Smith's background involves a crooked syndicate of [[mining]] companies.
Furthermore, Colorado has at least one Senate position in [[United States Senate]] Class II, the members of which were elected to the Senate in 1918. Senator [[Mark Udall]]([[Democratic Party|D]]-[[Colorado|CO]]) is the current Senator from Colorado belonging to Class II. Senator [[Joseph Paine]], had he been a real person, would have been elected to the Senate from Colorado as a member of that Class. [[Wyoming]], the State to the immediate north of Colorado and the only other likely candidate, does not have a Senator who is a member of Class II.
Finally, though Wyoming is entitled to only one Representative, Colorado currently fields seven. This is important because Smith pesters three members of his State's House delegation about a project that he suspects is a scheme for graft.
The party to which Jefferson Smith belonged was most likely the [[Democratic Party]], for two reasons:
# Smith's colleague, Senator [[Joseph Paine]], had [[White House]] aspirations, and those would have been totally unrealistic had Smith and Paine been members of the [[Republican Party]]. (In real life, of course, [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] chagrined many of his fellow Democrats by running for an unprecedented third term.)
# Smith and Paine both sat to the left of the center aisle, as one faces the well of the Senate. This is the side taken by the Democratic Caucus of the Senate.
=== A father murdered ===
When young Jeff Smith was about nine years old, his father was murdered. The circumstances, which Smith would not fully learn until he had long been an adult, were these: [[Joseph Paine ]] had agreed to represent a an independent miner who had a claim dispute of an unspecified nature with his employer, who in turn belonged to a powerful and corrupt mining syndicate. As Paine continued to press for pretrial discovery, Clayton Smith published story after story about the syndicate and its deplorable conduct in the case involving the miner. The syndicate tried every means within the law to stop the elder Smith from publishing. When this failed, they sent in an unknown assassin to kill the publisher as he sat at his desk. Jeff Smith's mother, sadly, was the one to discover the body.
How the miner's case was finally settled, adjudicated, or otherwise disposed of, the story never explains. Shortly after Clayton Smith's murder, Joseph Paine gave up his law practice, ran for the Senate, and won. The Smiths would not associate with Joseph Paine again until twenty years later.
When he stepped off the train at [[Union Station]], he was shocked and surprised when five of the loveliest young ladies he had ever seen, rushed up to him and kissed him. Women did ''not'' do such things back in Colorado, and he had never even thought about women in that way in his life. The leader among these women was introduced to him as Susan Paine, Joseph Paine's daughter.
Suddenly Smith saw a sight that made him forget his pigeons, Susan Paine, and everything and everyone else around him: the Capitol Dome, the most inspiring sight he had ever beheld. Oblivious to everything else, he started walking toward it. Then a tour bus stopped near the [[railroad]] station, and Smith got aboard. And so he took a regular tour of Washington, and saw all the sights, including the Capitol lobby (with its statue of [[Thomas Jefferson]] holding his quill pen), the courthouse of the [[United States Supreme Court]], the [[Thomas JeffersonArlington National Cemetary]] Memorial (with its portrait of Jefferson holding his quill pen), and finally the [[Abraham Lincoln]] Memorial. There he looked up into the eyes of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, and imagined that Lincoln was looking at him, as if to say that he, Lincoln, had sat all these long years in that spot, waiting for someone to come along.
Then he realized that he was not in Washington as a tourist, but had business here, and had abandoned his escorts. Hastily he made his way to the Capitol complex and the Senate Office Building (of which the Senate has three; which building he used, the story never says). When he arrived, he asked a doorman which office was the office of Jefferson Smith, and the doorman told him. He walked up the stairs, knocked on that office, and when a woman's harrassed harassed voice said, "Come in!", he walked in. He diffidently asked whether he had reached the offices of Jefferson Smith, and to his surprise, a young woman with an angry look on her face repeatedly said, "No!" So he walked away—and then the young woman came rushing out into the hallway.
"Wait a minute!" she cried. "What's your name?"
This woman, he soon learned, was his secretary, and her name was Saunders. The only other man in the room was Mr. "Diz" Moore, a reporter whom she seemed to know very well.
Now that he at least knew where his office was, he felt that he was getting his bearings at last. A few minutes later, Saunders told him that she would drive him to his Washington apartmentSenator Paine's hotel suite, which she did. He interrupted her several times to point out one sight or another, including the Capitol Dome with its night lights; Saunders would then tell him to save his energy.
The next day, he released the first of his carrier pigeons, which flew once around the Capitol Dome and then headed west. Later that day he saw Senator Paine at his Washington residence. There he met Susan Paine once again. He was still unused to the attentions of a woman, and Susan Paine's glamorous appearance dazzled him. He was so distracted that he couldn't even hold on to his hat, and as he took his leave, he knocked over a table lamp and several items of bric-a-brac, and perhaps never noticed that Susan Paine was doing her best to stifle her giggles. The day after that, he received several reporters in his office, all of whom wanted to know his impressions of Washington, and any special issues he wanted to propound. He named one: that he had always wanted to have a National Boys' Camp in Colorado, and knew the best spot for it. Then the reporters asked him to sound a few bird calls, and even demonstrate the friction fire-starting method, all of which he was happy to do.
== Swearing In ==
Finally came the day when he appeared before the Senate for the first time. The Senate convened at noon, so first he took a trip to [[George Washington]]'s [[Mount Vernon]] plantation, which struck him as a suitable thing to do to put him into a proper civic mood. He also released the first of his carrier pigeons, which flew once around the Capitol Dome and then headed west. He got back from that trip in plenty of time, and was in the chamber of the Senate with minutes to spare. A young page boy showed him to his desk—which once had been used by Senator [[Daniel Webster]]. The page showed him the Senate Manual and the Senate Calendar, which were kept in the desk, and pointed out a few prominent Senators, the [[Vice President of the United States]] who served as the Senate's presiding officer, and the various sections of the Senate galleries, including the tourist section, the press section, and the diplomatic section. Of the foreign dignitaries privileged to sit in that section, the boy said,{{cquote|They and the page boys are the only class we have in the place!}}
Jeff thanked the boy profusely, and even gave him a Boy Ranger pin to wear.
As Smith approached the podium, another Senator raised a point of order, saying that Smith had conducted himself in a sensationally improper and comical manner on his arrival in Washington. A baffled Smith tried to defend himself, but the VP reminded him that he was not permitted to speak until sworn in. Paine answered the question, however, saying that Smith had been misquoted. Although one other Senator tried to object, the VP firmly overruled all other objections, and administered to Smith the Constitutional oath.
On his way to his desk, Smith stopped at another Senator's desk, where the ''Washington Gazette-Journal'' was on display. There he saw what Senator Agnew had been talking about: it was his interview with all those reporters, and the story made him out to be a total clown!
Directly after the Senate finished for the day, Smith went out onto the streets of Washington, hunted down the reporters in turn, and slugged each one. He chased three into the National Press Club, where Diz Moore, another reporter named Sweeney, and several other reporters tackled him and shoved him into a booth. Then they proceeded to tell him that he had no business being in the Senate, because he didn't even know what a Senator did, or how a bill became a law. "Honorary stooge!" one reporter called him.
Mortified, Smith went to see Joe Paine in at his officehome. He complained that he couldn't answer those reporters' criticisms with any justice, because he had to admit that he was an empty suit decorating a chair. He asked for guidance in understanding the bills, and for reasons that he would understand only later, Paine was evasive and said,{{cquote|These bills have been put together by some of the greatest legal minds. I don't understand half of them myself, and I used to be a lawyer.}}
Paine then suggested that if Smith was serious about establishing a National Boys' Camp, then he should get his secretary, Saunders, to help him draft a bill to do just that.
He also met Susan Paine once again. He was still unused to the attentions of a woman, and Susan Paine's glamorous appearance dazzled him. He was so distracted that he couldn't even hold on to his hat, and as he took his leave, he knocked over a table lamp and several items of bric-a-brac, and perhaps never noticed that Susan Paine was doing her best to stifle her giggles.
== Writing a bill ==
And then Saunders, after saying something to herself about "doing this right," went to the filing cabinet, drew out the draft of what was obviously another bill, and advanced on Smith. She showed him what she had in her hand: a "Deficiency Bill," with several sections discussing "emergency deficiency appropriations." Then she turned to Section Forty: a proposal to build a [[dam]] on Willett Creek! Furthermore, she said, that very bill had been read aloud in the Senate that day, while he was at that party—and the very ''reason'' for his invitation was to keep him out of the Senate so that he wouldn't hear about it!
Saunders went on, working herself up into a more distressed state with every word she spoke. She spoke of a man named Jim Taylor, whom Smith had never heard met only once, at that banquet held in honor ofhis appointment, and a banquet that now seemed a lifetime ago. Saunders also spoke of graft, and a machine that Taylor controlled. And then she said,{{cquote|Go home! Go home and stop making people feel sorry for you!}}And then, about ready to collapse in tears, she and summoned Diz and rushed out of the office, leaving Smith alone.
== The revelations ==
The next day, Saunders, of course, was gone. But Smith didn't have time to think about hiring another secretary. He sought out three members of the Colorado House delegation, one of whom represented the district that included Ambrose County, and demanded from them everything they knew about the Willett Dam project.
Eventually he received an invitation—actually more like a summons—to appear at the Paine homeMadison Hotel, this time in a suite newly occupied by Jim Taylor. There he met the infamous Jim Taylor for the first second timein his life, and also saw the three members of the House delegation whom he had been questioning earlier. Taylor proceeded to tell him that he, Taylor, could guarantee him an executive position in any business in Colorado, or any political office he wished, for as long as he wished to hold it. Taylor even said that those three Representatives, ''and'' Senator Paine, all were "smart" and took his "advice." In fact, Taylor said that Paine had been taking his advice for the twenty years that he had been serving in the Senate.
Smith, now thoroughly angry, looked Taylor in the eye, and said, {{cquote|You're a liar.}}
Taylor looked back at him smugly and said nothing.
Smith lost no time in going to see Senator Paine in his office. Paine's staff, a much larger staff than Smith had ever had, told Smith that Paine was out of town. Which Smith knew to be impossible, so he barged into Paine's private office. Paine was present, and in a good-natured manner asked whether Smith had had a talk with Jim Taylor.
Smith could say nothing to this. Visitors in the gallery booed him, and young pages took off their Boy Ranger pins.
The hearings in the Committee on Privileges and Elections (in real life, this is the Senate Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, or "The Ethics Committee") were like something out of that novel by that weird [[German]] author, [[Franz Kafka]], titled [[The Trial]] (assuming that Jeff Smith ever read anything by Kafka, which is possiblehe might have done, even to keep up with yet another book that [[Adolf Hitler]] had ordered burnt). He saw a deed of record showing him to be the owner of the two-hundred-acre plot that included Willett Creek, and, worse yet, a contract, with his signature on it, saying that he promised Kenneth Allen fifty percent of any profits that he might make on the sale of that land. Three different handwriting experts testified to the commiteecommittee, and two of the three said that his signature was real. Finally, Joe Paine told the biggest lie of all: that after Smith had presented his bill, Paine had congratulated him, but pointed out the Willett Dam project, which had prompted Smith to say, "Move the dam!" Of course, no such conversation had ever occurred. When Smith had presented his bill, Paine had left the chamber in the middle of its reading—and here Paine was, telling a story made up out of the whole cloth!
When the committee invited him to speak, he found that he couldn't. He walked out of the committee hearing room without saying a word.
== Saunders Returns ==
Smith packed his bags and prepared to walk to Union Station. But on his way he had to stop to see Abraham Lincoln's statue one last time. As he looked into Lincoln's face, all that he could think of was that Lincoln must think him a traitor. How could he expect Mr. Lincoln to understand that all those men in that Committee, including Governor Hopper, of all people, had paraded in to tell a tissue of lies?But what had actually paralyzed him was not Governor Hopper, whom he didn't know from [[Adam]], but Senator Paine, a man he had worshipped, as his father had.
Then he felt a hand on his arm. It was Clarissa Saunders, who said that she had come back to Washington in spite of herself, and had found a jar of strawberry preserves waiting for her. Clarissa knew all about what had happened, and knew equally that it had to be a lie—because she had known all about Jim Taylor's corrupt, graft-ridden political machine for years. She told Smith something else: that he could fight it, and with her help, he might even win. And if he did ''not'' fight it, then Mr. Lincoln (if he were alive) and his Boy Rangers (who were all very much alive) would reproach him, ''not'' for being a dishonest politician (which he wasn't,) but for quitting. He agreed to talk to her, and, with one last wave of his hand to Lincoln, he left the Memorial.
== The filibuster ==
Saunders tutured tutored him for several hours that night, in the rules of the Senate, and especially in the unique Senatorial privilege called the [[filibuster]]. Under that rule, as long as he refused to yield the floor for anything other than a question, a point of order, or a point of personal privilege, he could hold the floor as long as his physical endurance would allow.
The next morning, he appeared in the Senate and answered to his name in the roll call. He overheard a lot of murmuring, both on the floor and in the galleries (especially the press section), but he paid it no heed. He sat at his desk, gripping it with both hands, and waited for Clarissa's signal to stand.
The Chairman of the P&E Committee delivered his report. At once Senator Agnew rose to call for a vote, but Smith , at Saunders' signal, was already on his feet. Both men shouted for recognition simultaneously.
Senator Agnew protested that Smith could "have nothing further to say." The Vice President gaveled him to silence and sternly said, {{cquote|He is still a member of this body, and as such has an equal claim on the attention of this chair.}}
Senator Agnew again asked whether he was prepared to yield, and Smith said no, that he felt fine, and that he would begin reading the Constitution. Several Senators threw up their hands and sighed when he said that last.
Smith read the Constitution all the way through, with all of its amendments to date. (This would have ended with the [[Twenty-First_AmendmentFirst Amendment]], or the repeal of Prohibition.) He continued by reading from the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles.
=== The collapse ===
So he turned to Joe Paine and addressed him directly. He said that this was simply another lost cause, the kind for which a man ought to fight harder than for anything else. He reminded Paine of his association with the late Clayton Smith, and of the love that Paine had earned from Jeff Smith himself.
Then Smith defiantly turned to the rest of the Senate, saying,{{cquote|You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked! And I'm going to stand stay right here and fight for this lost cause—, even if this room gets filled with lies like these—even if Taylor , and his minions the Taylors and all their armies come marching in here to drag me awayinto this place! Somebody'll listen to me...somebody...}}
Everything went black at that moment. The wooden floor of the Senate chamber rushed up to meet him and clout him in the temple. He then could speak, hear, and think no more.