Quotes About Politics

You have to educate people first— you can't let them go out and vote for whatever they want! You don't know what you'd end up with!

He had been a reform member of the city council, he had been a Greenbacker, a Labor Unionist, a Populist, a Bryanite—and after thirty years of fighting, the year 1896 had served to convince him that the power of concentrated wealth could never be controlled, but could only be destroyed. He had published a pamphlet about it, and set out to organize a party of his own, when a stray Socialist leaflet had revealed to him that others had been ahead of him. Now

And now in the union Jurgis met men who explained all this mystery to him; and he learned that America differed from Russia in that its government existed under the form of a democracy. The officials who ruled it, and got all the graft, had to be elected first; and so there were two rival sets of grafters, known as political parties, and the one got the office which bought the most votes. Now

The eloquent senator was explaining the system of protection; an ingenious device whereby the workingman permitted the manufacturer to charge him higher prices, in order that he might receive higher wages; thus taking his money out of his pocket with one hand, and putting a part of it back with the other. To the senator this unique arrangement had somehow become identified with the higher verities of the universe. It

What, then, was the difference between America and Moscow? The "muckraker" said it was a question of who owned the state. In America the people were supposed to own it, but most of the time the big businessmen bought it away from them. "It is privilege which corrupts politics," was his phrase.

Political slogans are like grain scattered to draw birds into a snare. Find out who's putting up the money for a political party, and then you know what it will do.

In a pluto-democracy, politics is the art of outwitting the voters, so the Honorable Ham would never say that he hated the labor unions and proposed to keep them down. What he said was that the Reds were plotting to seize America. Some fifteen years ago he had got himself appointed chairman of a committee to investigate the Communists. His definition of this word was rather vague, and included everybody who proposed any sort of change calculated to reduce the gulf between the rich and the poor.

Here was the author of Mein Kampf, demonstrating his thesis that the bigger the lie the easier to get it believed, and that all you have to do is to keep on saying a thing often enough and you can make it the truth.

Congress is balking; in fact, they have got to the point where they won't do anything if they think it's what I want.

You see, son, our business men are trading with the Germans all the time, regardless of politics. Standard Oil has a big deal regarding patent rights with I. G. Farben, the German dye trust, and so have the du Ponts. The A.E.G., the electrical trust, is in the same position, and I don't doubt that the Hermann Goring Stahlwerke have many such understandings in America.

For eight years he had been a satellite of F.D.R., revolving about him; now suddenly there was no F.D.R., and Lanny was an asteroid or something, wandering alone through space.

forceful men of the people went into politics, their hearts bleeding for the wrongs of the poor; so they collected votes and built up a political machine, which they used to blackmail their way to fortune.

It has happened just about as I told you, M. Budd." Lanny said it was so, and thought that the death of something like a hundred and twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, and the captivity of ten or twelve times as many, signified less to Pierre Laval than the ability to say: "C'est moi qui avait raison!

telling you things which he not merely knew were not true, but which he knew that you knew were not true. A bitter lesson you had to learn, soon or late, that truth had no meaning to any Communist; the only question that concerned him was the advancement of his cause.

National Socialism versus true Socialism, racism versus humanity—that was the struggle between Satan and God in the modern world.

he swung back and forth between what they told him to do and what he thought would please the public. He was gay and personally charming, and possessed what was called a "mercurial temperament"—meaning that he didn't mind saying the opposite of what he had said yesterday, if in the meantime he had found that he was in danger of losing votes.

When, in answer to a question, Herr Budd stated that he was a non-political person, that pleased everyone, for the Nazis wanted all the world to be non-political except themselves.

For a quarter of a century we watched National Socialism stealing our name and using it to cover naked aggression. Few of us are likely to be deceived a second time.

We have very few Congressmen and Senators who represent the public," was the reply. "Most of them represent the interests which put up their campaign funds last time and are expected to do it next time.

In countries where the people have the ballot you have to promise them something desirable, otherwise the opposition will outbid you.

The Rightists called themselves America Firsters, and their opponents called them Fascists; the Leftists called themselves Liberals, and their opponents called them Reds.

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label.

These refugees from a score of lands, including the sweet land of liberty overseas, talked politics and war incessantly, but when you listened you discovered that what they were thinking about was their own comfort, the preservation of the system which made their own lives so easy. What was going to happen to the "market"?—by which they meant the stocks and bonds from which their incomes were derived. If

And you won't need any assurance that I agree with you about Hearst. He is one of the most unscrupulous and most dangerous men in America. He stops at nothing to get his way. And there are many like him.