Harry S. Truman on America

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

This is a Christian nation.

The President of the United States hears a hundred voices telling him that he is the greatest man in the world. He must listen carefully to hear the one voice that tells him he’s not.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)

• Politics

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H. L. Mencken1880–1956‘Notes On Journalism’ in the Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926)