I think the Senate ought to realize that I have to have about me those in whom I have confidence; and unless they find a real blem...ish on a man, I do not think they ought to make partisan politics out of appointments to the Cabinet.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,--if only... that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The trenchant editorials plus the keen rivalry natural to extremely partisan papers made it necessary for the editors to be expert... pugilists and duelists as well as journalists. An editor made no assertion that he could not defend with fists or firearms.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Commencement oratory ... must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm... opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One of its [James A. Garfield's assassination] lessons, perhaps its most important lesson, is the folly, the wickedness, and the d...anger of the extreme and bitter partisanship which so largely prevails in our country. This partisan bitterness is greatly aggravated by that system of appointments and removals which deals with public offices as rewards for services rendered to political parties or to party leaders. Hence crowds of importunate place-hunters of whose dregs [the assassin] Guiteau is the type. The required reform [of the civil service] will be accomplished whenever the people imperatively demand it, not only of their Executive, but also of their legislative officers. With it, the class to which the assassin belongs will lose their occupation, and the temptation to try "to administer government by assassination" will be taken away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in s...uch a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit.... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more ca...ndor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to--no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Democracy and Republicanism in their best partisan utterances alike declare for human rights. Jefferson, the father of Democracy, ...Lincoln, the embodiment of Republicanism, and the Divine author of the religion on which true civilization rests, all proclaim the equal rights of all men.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things... are clearly more complicated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The leadership qualities of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower deserve special scrutiny because their common and contrasting... qualities illumine the nature of "charismatic" leadership in the Presidency. James M Burns, by calling his study of Roosevelt The Lion and the Fox, placed him in the tradition of Machiavellian strategy, and there is little question that Roosevelt used imaginative daring and pugnacity along with the cunning maneuver. Both qualities led him deep into party politics, where he fought the unfaithful ... and smote the heathen without. Eisenhower had less both of the lion and the fox; he was not savage in attack, but usually soft-spoken; and he affected the style of staying outside political involvement and keeping above the party battles.... He understood the deep American impulse toward the belittling of politics, and by seeming to avoid partisanship he could win more converts to his cause than the most partisan leader.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »