As he stepped out of the train into the new station at Washington, the first thing that caught his eye was a headline on a paper at the news stand. It was in letters so long and wide that he could read it a hundred feet away: JESUS IS HERE!

He bought a paper and found that the account under the headline had nothing really positive to offer except a rumor that Jesus had, it was thought, been seen and recognized that afternoon on Pennsylvania Avenue. Beyond that there was not a single item of real news to locate Jesus or tell what he would do or say at the nation’s capital.

The next morning the papers contained nothing any more definite. Jesus was said to be in Washington, but no one knew where. There was a general air of expectancy all over the city as if great events were impending, but no definite knowledge of Jesus’s presence that the most industrious correspondent could discover.

Like many newspapermen who lived in the Middle West, Carter had never been to Washington and had never seen Congress in session. He walked up to the Capitol and went into the visitor’s gallery of the House of Representatives, taking a seat directly opposite the Speaker. Over on the left he noted the seats reserved in the gallery for the members of the House, and after he had been seated ten minutes, he recognized the member from his district at home who took a seat in the gallery, accompanied by two constituents.

If Jasper Carter had chosen on purpose to visit the House of Representatives on a day of supreme importance, he could not have selected a greater time. He had come just in time to witness the final vote on the interstate commerce bill forbidding the shipment of liquor into prohibition states.

He sat there, his old cynical habits predominating as he contemplated the historical event, with a pessimism which had always seen the worst in human nature, and even now, in spite of the fact that he soon discovered this bill was going to pass by a large majority, trying to find selfish or questionable motives in the actions of the members who were about to vote for the measure. The Congressman from his district, after evidently explaining some procedure to his friends, left the members’ gallery and went down into the House to take his seat for the final vote.

Carter knew, or thought he knew, how the member would vote. He was a man who nearly all his life had been on the side of the liquor trade, and had, so far as Carter knew, always been for license and regulation and personal liberty.