One cynic tells us that “A statesman is a politician who is dead,” and another cynic varies the epigram to read “A politician out of a job.” Patriotism cries “God give us men,” but the parties say “Give us votes and offices,” and Congress proceeds to create a commission.
Watterson presents cynical views on politicians and statesmen, contrasting their motivations with patriotic ideals.
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Men took their politics, as their liquor, “straight”; and this father of mine was an undoubting Democrat of the schools of Jefferson and Jackson.
Whether the War of Sections—as it should be called, because, except in Eastern Tennessee and in three of the Border States, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, it was nowise a civil war—could have been averted must ever remain a question of…
Firm, resonant, earnest, it announced the coming of a man, of a leader of men; and in its tone and style the gentlemen whom he had invited to become members of his political family—each of whom thought himself a bigger man than his…
From fakers who have cards up their sleeves, not to mention snakes in their boots, we hear a great deal about “the people,” pronounced by them as if it were spelled “pee-pul.” It is the unfailing recourse of the professional politician in…
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