Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932)

Lee Tracy: Button Wynett Brown

Photos 

Quotes 

• Button Gwinett Brown : Let me tell you this: This nation is in trouble, great trouble, plagued with a thousand problems. This isn't just a depression; this is a crisis! You've got a Senate and a House of Representatives, filled mostly with honest, patriotic men. . . . And they're all striving to bring this nation back to its place in the sun. But they're handicapped--hamstrung by a hidden government--an evil, marauding crew that has turned the Constitution of the United States into a bill of sale.

• Button Gwinett Brown : [making his maiden speech in Congress]  . . .The Digger bill is a barefaced attempt to loot the Treasury to the tune of two million dollars of the people's money. I'm only a greenhorn; I don't know what it's all about

  [raucous applause] 

  Button Gwinett Brown : . . . . Maybe two million dollars isn't important in a four billion dollar budget. But this is important, gentlemen: A lot of you are going to vote for the Digger bill, which you haven't even read, so that others will vote for *your* bill, which *they* haven't read. These chiseling little camphor-ball measures are just chips in the big poker game, played with the people's money.

• Button Gwinett Brown : . . .I don't mind telling you that the biggest crook in Washington is your friend Norton.

  Alice Wylie : Why, he could buy and sell people like you by the gross.

  Button Gwinett Brown : Sure, that's his specialty, buying and selling people. What's *your* price?

  Alice Wylie : How dare you talk to me like that?

  Button Gwinett Brown : You think you know your Washington. Your Washington is just a Vassar daisy chain. To you, it's all a merry-go-round: embassies, parties, teas, dances. Why, if you got into a covered wagon, you'd ask for a chauffeur. You're like all the rest of the people around here: soft and dizzy and useless.

  [she slaps him, and runs out.]