Society and the World

The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted—in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest . . . of his head.

[ On the “court-packing plan” increasing the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices :] This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.

Modern complexities call also for a constant infusion of new blood in the courts, just as it is needed in executive functions of the Government and in private business. A lowered mental or physical vigor leads men to avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions. Little by little, new facts become blurred through old glasses fitted, as it were, for the needs of another generation; older men, assuming that the scene is the same as it was in the past, cease to explore or to inquire into the present or the future.

The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. The most serious threat to our institutions comes from those who refuse to face the need for change. Liberalism becomes the protection for the far-sighted conservative.

I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation [the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935].

I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation [the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935].

Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. . . . The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business.

Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. . . . The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business.

The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory . . . was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward . . . through the ranks.

The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory . . . was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward . . . through the ranks.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

[ Of Alfred E. Smith :] He is the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield.

A woman will always have to be better than a man in any job she undertakes.

A woman will always have to be better than a man in any job she undertakes.

You will find that [as the First Lady] you are no longer clothing yourself, you are dressing a public monument.

You will find that [as the First Lady] you are no longer clothing yourself, you are dressing a public monument.

All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying to avert.

All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying to avert.

Even in Paris, I remained a Canadian. I puffed hashish, but I didn’t inhale.

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.

Split at the root, neither Gentile nor Jew,

War is a condition of progress; the whip-cut that prevents a country from going to sleep and forces satisfied mediocrity to shake off its apathy.