The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern.

A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

The devil is merely a fallen angel, and when God lost Satan he lost one of his best lieutenants.

When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute.

Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.