If with the serpent wisdom we unite the serpent guile, terrible will be the damage we do; and if, with the best of intentions, we can only manage to deserve the epithet of “harmless,” it is hardly worth while to have lived in the world at all.
Expanding on the balance between wisdom and harmlessness, Roosevelt warns against combining wisdom with deceit and dismisses a life of mere ineffectual harmlessness.
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A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
Therefore I hope that so far as possible the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference as to who shall be the nominee of the Republican Presidential Convention.
I absolutely agree with you that this matter is not one to be decided with any reference to the personal preferences or interests of any man, but purely from the standpoint of the interests of the people as a whole.
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