The Notes (48 page)

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Authors: Ronald Reagan

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T
hey went beyond the call of duty—they wanted to get someplace where they couldn’t hear it.

W
oman home with pckg. Husband: “what did you buy?” W: “I don’t know what it is.” H: “Then why did you buy it?” W: “Because the man said you can’t get them anymore.”

H
eard of a man still has 1st $? This man has stock he bought when the company’s name was “General Candle.”

W
ent for singing lessons said—“Don’t know what to do with my hands when I sing.” Have you tried holding them over your mouth.

U
. Prof. of Eng. told class he’d found one of the most elegant lines of poetry in the Eng. language. “Walk with light” (repeat). “Isn’t that a wonderful thing to say to someone?” Class agreed & asked who was . . . poet. Prof: “Anonymous . . . it’s written on a sign at the corner of 9th & Main.”

V
isiting friend asked wealth, soc. leader why he stayed in such a small one horse town. He said: “Because I’m the horse.”

T
chr: “Not only is he the worst behaved kid in school—he has a perfect attendance record.”

T
hings could be worse—100 mil. Ams. don’t have driver’s licenses.

Glossary

Acton, John Dalberg
(1834–1902): English historian with an interest in the American federal system. His extensive library was given to the University of Cambridge.

Adams, Samuel
(1722–1803): Second cousin to John Adams, politician in colonial Massachusetts, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Adams, John
(1735–1826): Assisted in drafting the Declaration of Independence. He was the second president of the United States, as well as a political theorist.

Aesop
(620–564 BCE): Greek slave and storyteller whose well-known fables, like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” are often used in the moral education of children.

Amiel, Henri Frédéric
(1821–1881): Swiss poet and philosopher who traveled widely and taught moral philosophy in Geneva. He is known for his book
Journal Intime
.

Anderson, Maxwell
(1888–1959): American playwright, poet, and author who founded the Playwrights’ Company.

Antonius, Marcus
(c. 83–30 BCE): Roman politician and general who supported Julius Caesar as military commander, started the Final War of the Roman Republic, and took Cleopatra as his lover.

Aptheker, Herbert
(1915–2003): American Marxist historian and political activist who most notably researched African-American history.

Aristotle
(384–322 BCE): Greek philosopher, student of Plato, and teacher to Alexander the Great. With Socrates and Plato, one of the founders of Western philosophy.

Barden, Graham
(1896–1967): Democratic U.S. congressman from North Carolina. He served thirteen consecutive terms in the House and chaired the House Education Committee and, later, the Education and Labor Committee.

Bastiat, Claude-Frédéric
(1801–1850): French liberal theorist, member of the French assembly, and political economist known for his clever attacks on policies enacted by states to protect themselves.

Benton, William
(1900–1973): U.S. senator from Connecticut and publisher of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
. Active organizer of the United Nations.

Booth, William
(1829–1912): British Methodist preacher and the founder and first general of the Salvation Army, then an evangelist organization that turned humanitarian.

Browning, Robert
(1812–1889): Acclaimed Victorian poet and playwright known for his dramatic monologues. He influenced later poets with his method of building emotional sympathy for unsavory moral characters.

Burke, Edmund
(1729–1797): Irish philosopher, statesman, author, and orator known for supporting the American Revolution and opposing the French Revolution, as well as founding the philosophies of modern conservatism.

Carnegie, Dale
(1888–1955): American lecturer and author of self-improvement, sales, and business books such as
How to Win Friends and Influence People
.

Chambers, Whittaker
(1901–1961): American writer and editor. Once a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and testified in the perjury and espionage trial of Alger Hiss.

Chesterton, Gilbert
(1874–1936): English writer who critiqued both conservatism and liberalism. He also wrote fantasy and detective fiction.

Churchill, Winston
(1874–1965): British politician who served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom and led the Allied forces to victory in World War II. He was known for his oratorical skills and his wartime leadership.

Cicero, Marcus
(106–43 BCE): Roman theorist, linguist, and translator who introduced Romans to the schools of Greek philosophy. His correspondences with his friend Atticus introduced to Europe the art of letter writing.

Conant, James
(1893–1978): Chemist, government official, and president of Harvard University. He was known for reforming Harvard and making it a world-class institution.

Confucius
(551–479 BCE): Chinese social philosopher who emphasized morality in all worldly relationships. His teachings are found in the
Analects of Confucius
.

Coolidge, Calvin
(1872–1933): Thirtieth president of the United States, succeeding upon the death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. He was controversial for his downsizing of government programs and promotion of laissez-faire economics.

Cotton, John
(1585–1652): Core member of the New England Puritan ministers who was influential in shaping church structure and rules.

Denning, Alfred “Tom”
(1899–1999): British soldier, lawyer, judge, and mathematician. He became King’s Counsel in 1938 and campaigned against the common-law principle of precedent.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
(1803–1882): American poet, lecturer, and transcendentalist who championed freedom and explored the spiritual relationship between man and the world.

Frankl, Viktor
(1905–1997): Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who wrote the bestselling book
Man’s Search for Meaning
.

Fulbright, J. William
(1905–1995): U.S. senator who represented Arkansas. As a Southern Democrat, he opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee and established an international exchange program that now bears his name.

Gandhi, Mahatma
(1869–1948): “Father” of India, an honorific applied to him because he politically and ideologically led the movement for India’s independence from England. He advocated a particular method of civil disobedience known as
satyagraha
.

Garfield, James
(1831–1881): Major general in the Civil War and the twentieth president of the United States. He accomplished very little during his 200 days in office, and he was assassinated on July 2, 1881.

Gladstone, William
(1809–1898): British liberal statesman and scholar of Homer, known for his four terms as prime minister and his famous feud with Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli.

Goebbels, Joseph
(1897–1945): German politician and minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany. He was the architect of the
Kristallnacht
attack on German Jews that precipitated the genocide, and he was famous for his oratorical skills.

Gompers, Samuel
(1850–1924): English-born leader of the American labor movement. He founded the American Federation of Labor and worked to raise wages for workers.

Gromyko, Andrey
(1909–1989): Soviet statesman through the Cold War. He was responsible for much of Soviet foreign policy, including the arms limitations treaties.

Hamilton, Alexander
(1755–1804): Founding father and economist. He wrote most of the
Federalist Papers
and was the first U.S. secretary of the treasury. He died in a duel with Aaron Burr.

Hand, Billings Learned
(1872–1961): United States judge and judicial philosopher who served on the District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is often quoted for his elegant legal thought.

Hannah, John
(1902–1991): President of Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) for twenty-eight years. He later became the head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Harris, Sydney
(1917–1986): American journalist for the
Chicago Daily News
and the
Chicago Sun-Times
. His column, “Strictly Personal,” was widely syndicated in North America.

Henning, Jack
(1915–2009): Former U.S. ambassador and undersecretary of labor. He was a defender of the minimum wage and civil rights.

Henry, Patrick
(1736–1799): Founding Father and leading anti-Federalist, he served as the first and sixth governor of Virginia. He is best remembered for the speech in which he said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Hill, Benjamin
(1823–1882): U.S. representative and senator as well as Confederate senator for the state of Georgia during the Civil War. He was one of few prewar politicians to achieve postwar success.

Hitler, Adolf
(1889–1945): Austrian-born German politician who was appointed chancellor of Germany and transformed it into a fascist state. He is responsible for the Holocaust and the outbreak of World War II.

Holland, Josiah Gilbert
(1819–1881): American novelist and poet who wrote under the pseudonym “Timothy Titcomb.”

Holmes, Oliver Wendell
(1841–1935): American jurist who served as associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932. He was known for being one of the most influential common-law judges, with efforts to support New Deal regulations.

Hoover, Herbert
(1874–1964): Thirty-first president of the United States. He was a mining engineer and author who served as the secretary of commerce. As president he unsuccessfully tried to combat the Great Depression.

Hoover, J. Edgar
(1895–1972): First director and instrumental founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His controversial tenure led to the instatement of ten-year term limitations for FBI directors.

Hutchins, Robert
(1899–1977): Educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School, and president of the University of Chicago.

Ibn Khaldoun
(1332–1406): North African polymath whose expertise lay in astronomy, economics, history, law, and nutrition. He is considered the father of the social sciences, particularly in the East.

Jefferson, Thomas
(1743–1826): Third president of the United States, Founding Father, and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He promoted republicanism and is consistently ranked among the greatest U.S. presidents.

Johnson, Hiram
(1866–1945): American progressive who served as the twenty-third governor of California and later as a U.S. senator. He became a staunch isolationist, opposing the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Kennedy, John F.
(1917–1963): Thirty-fifth president of the United States. He was beloved during his short presidency and presided over the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the space race, and the beginnings of the African-American civil rights movement. He was assassinated in 1963.

Khrushchev, Nikita
(1894–1971): Leader of the Soviet Union during parts of the Cold War, including the Cuban missile crisis. He was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization and liberalization of domestic policy in the Soviet Union.

Krock, Arthur
(1886–1974): American journalist and Washington correspondent for the
New York Times
. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Lenin
(Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, 1870–1924): Russian Marxist revolutionary and Communist politician. He led the October Revolution of 1917 and fought to establish a socialist economic system and maintain Communist control through the Russian Civil War.

Lewis, C. S.
(1898–1963): Irish-born British novelist and Christian theologian. He is best known for his children’s fiction, especially
The Chronicles of Narnia
.

Lieber, Francis
(1800–1872): German-American political theorist and jurist. He is widely known as the author of the
Lieber Code
—a code of conduct for troops during wartime—during the American Civil War.

Lincoln, Abraham
(1809–1865): Sixteenth president of the United States. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves, in 1863; led the nation through the Civil War; and was assassinated in April 1865.

Lippmann, Walter
(1889–1974): American reporter, commentator, and intellectual who introduced the concept of the Cold War and was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his news column, “Today and Tomorrow.”

Macaulay, Thomas
(1800–1859): British poet and Whig politician who wrote extensively on British history and served as secretary of war from 1839 to 1841.

MacLean, Alistair
(1922–1987): Scottish novelist who wrote thrillers and adventure stories under the pseudonym “Ian Stuart.”

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