The Notes (5 page)

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merica is sauntering thru the mazes of pol.’s with easy nonchalance. But presently there will come a time when she’ll be surprised to find herself grown old—a country crowded, strained, perplexed. When she will be obligated to fall back upon her conservatism—obliged to pull herself together, adopt a new regimen of life, husband her resources, concentrate her strength, steady her methods, sober her views, restrict her vagaries, trust her best, not her average members.

Cicero

T
he budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the pub. debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered & controlled. Assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. The mob should be forced to work & not depend on govt. for sustenance.

F.D.R.

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he doctrine of reg. & legis. by masterminds in whose judgment and will all the people may gladly & quietly acquiesce has been too glaringly apparent in Wash. Were it possible to find masterminds so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interest—such a govt. might be to the interest of the country but there are none such on the pol. horizon.

Frederic Bastiat Addressing Nat. Assembly—France, 12/12/1849

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he govt. offers a cure for the ills of mankind. It promises to restore commerce, make agri. prosperous, expand industry, encourage arts & letters, wipe out poverty, etc. etc. All that is needed is to create some new govt. agencies & to pay a few more bureaucrats.

Bastiat

W
hen a nation is burdened with taxes nothing is more difficult or impossible than to levy them equally. What is still more difficult however is to shift the tax burden onto the shoulders of the rich. The state can have an abundance of money only by taking from everyone especially from the masses.

T
he state is the fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

T
he state quickly understands the use of the role the pub entrusts to it. It will be the arbiter, the master of all destinies. It will take a great deal hence a great deal will remain for itself. It will multiply the number of its agents . . . it will end by acquiring overwhelming proportions.

Robert M. Hutchins

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he American experiment of leaving ed. to 50 states & 40,000 school boards is drawing to a close. Fed. aid to education formally on a massive scale is inevitable & the sooner it comes the better.

Leonard Read

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nflation is a device for siphoning govt. property into the coffers of govt. Successful hedging would require finding a form of property that cannot be confiscated. It does not exist. Pare govt. back to size; that is the only way to protect private property against confiscation.

Arthur Krock “Memoirs”

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s a Wash. eyewitness of governmental and other public action through the years I formed the opinion that the U.S. merits the dubious distinction of having discarded its past & its meaning in one of the briefest spans of modern hist. Among the changes are—fiscal solvency & confidence in a stable $ driven from the national & foreign mkt. place by continuous deficit spending, easy credit, & growing unfavorable balance of payments in the international ledger of the U.S.; the free enterprise system shackled by organized labor & a govt.-managed economy; the govt. transmuted into a [welfare] it subsidized from Wash. & spoiled generations young to old led to expect the govt. to provide for all their wants, free of any of the requirements of responsible citizenship.

Vladimir Lenin

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he way to take over a country is to debauch the currency. Through a continuous policy of inflation a govt. can quietly & unobservedly confiscate the wealth of its citizens.

Calvin Coolidge